ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



THE UNIVERSITY SERIES 



Elements of Psychology 



By GEORGE CROOM ROBERTSON 

LATE GROTE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 



EDITED FROM NOTES OF LECTURES DELIVERED 
AT THE COLLEGE, 1870-1892 

By C. A. FOLEY RHYS DAVIDS, M.A. 

FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 





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INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



In accepting the flattering invitation of the Editor of this 
series that I should contribute to it two manuals compiled 
from George Croom Robertson's college lectures on Psycho- 
logy and Philosophy, I am doing some injustice to the 
memory of my revered teacher and friend in order that 
thereby I may render him a larger justice. It is true 
that in the opinion of scholars most competent to speak — of 
Professors Bain, Sully, and James Ward — while it were good 
that no teaching of euch a man should be lost, it would 
have been repugnant to Professor Robertson's own feelings 
to see his extemporary discourses in print. They know how 
he drew a sharp distinction between the style suitable for 
oral teaching and that appropriate to the literary registration 
and publication of one's ideas. And the truth and aptness 
of the spoken matter would of course be liable to every 
degree of deflexion in passing through the reporting medium. 
But this compilation does not pretend to clothe the author's 
ideas in a literary style such as he himself would have 
approved. The discrepancy in the two styles is illustrated 
in these pages. The lecture on the growth of the Mind, 



vi Introductory Note, 

not to mention other shorter portions, I have copied verbatim 
from a bundle of the author's notes, entrusted to me by 
Mr. Charles Robertson, it being, I believe, a chapter in a 
manual of psychology he was then intending to write. Its 
flow is smoother, its periods more polished than the more 
abrupt movement in other lectures. Speaking however as 
a student of mental philosophy, and not of literature, and 
without presuming to judge for others, I should have no 
hesitation in preferring to be led up and into the subject by 
the more colloquial, direct, and vigorous utterance of the oral 
style. But this may be in part the effect of treasured 
associations. That the reporting has at least been so done 
as to be no unfaithful reflexion of that style is testified to 
by Mr. Charles Robertson, with whose sanction, promptly 
and generously accorded, the lectures have been published. 
1 1 recognise/ he writes, ' my brother's thought and manner 
of expression reproduced with wonderful fullness and accuracy, 
and feel I am face to face with him/ 

As to the more serious objection of a discount on accuracy 
as to fact and point inevitable in such notes as a student, 
struggling with the difficulties of his subject, is qualified to 
take, I may modify if I cannot obviate it by stating the 
sources and extent of my materials. Twenty- five former 
students of University College London, who studied under 
Professor Robertson, have been good enough to send me at 
my request the notes of the lectures he delivered in their 
hearing. The response was in nearly every case so prompt 
and effective that my materials soon amounted to a fairly con- 
tinuous record of the general and special courses of lectures 



Introductory Note. vii 

as delivered, annually or otherwise, during twenty-one of the 
twenty-five years of his professoriate ; and to have published 
the whole would have filled at least a third volume. Sub- 
joined are the names of my contributors, to whom I here 
again offer my heari.y thanks : — George A. Aitken, Esq. ; Rev. 
Martin Anstey, M.A. ; Mrs. Archer Hind (Miss Laura 
Pocock); Mrs. Sophie Bryant, D.Sc. ; Herman J. Cohen, 
Esq. ; Professor W. Hall Griffin, B.A. ; Rev. Isidore 
Harris, M.A.; H. Erank Heath, Esq., B.A., Ph.D.; Rev. 
Alfred Hills, B.A.; Principal J. Viriamu Jones, M. A., F.R. S. 
(University College S. Wales and Monmouthshire) ; J. Neville 
Keynes, Esq., M. A., D. Sc. ; Benjamin Leverson, Esq., B.A. ; 
Rev. S. Levy, B.A.; J. W. Manning, Esq., M.A.; Miss 
Dorothy Marshall, B. Sc. ; Andrew Ogilvie, Esq., B.A. ; Miss 
Mary A. Robertson, M.A. ; Ernest C. Robinson, Esq., M.A. ; 
G. Armitage Smith, Esq., M.A. ; President J. G. Schurman, 
M.A., D.Sc. (Cornell University); Rev. E. H. Titchmarsh, 
M.A. ; H. J. Tozer, Esq., M.A. ; Miss Frances A. Welby; 
Sidney White, Esq., B.A., LL.D.; Miss Eva Whitley, B.Sc. 
To some I am more especially indebted, either because 
(as in the case of Principal Viriamu Jones and Mr. Levy) 
their notes had been taken down in shorthand and then 
written out in full, or as being otherwise especially adequate. 
Collation of these MSS. with my own notes has enabled me 
to expand, supplement, and verify the latter so as to effect 
a reproduction better, it may be, at times in its compositeness 
than any one report, however faithful, could have been 
Professor Robertson did not write out his lectures, nor did 
he leave notes of any except those on Psychology. He 



viii Introductory Note. 

himself regretted that he had not in earlier years written out 
immediately afterwards what he had just delivered. While 
lecturing he made no use of notes. He became so 
intensely absorbed, not only in his subject, but in following 
the process of its assimilation by every member of his 
class, that he consulted only the look on their faces. But 
it was just this considerate procedure of not pressing 
on to reel off so much of his subject per hour, but 
of letting his pace in exposition keep time with the signs of 
following comprehension in his hearers — a wise considerate- 
ness to which I have elsewhere borne testimony 1 — that 
made it possible for all who would to take faithful and 
readable notes. It tended at times to cause arrears in 
treatment, and some condensation or omission at the close 
of a course. But it has enabled me to compile this manual, 
such as it is, without adding in the text a sentence of my 
own. I could even add 'or a clause/ since all that I have 
inserted were merely to expand elliptical utterances that, 
when spoken as he spoke them, were clear enough. The 
passages prescribed for reading were those prescribed by 
himself 2 ; the footnotes are also portions of his lectures, 
where not otherwise indicated, being either parenthetical 
remarks, or drawn from arguments pursued more in some 
years than in others, and which, while pertinent, did not 

1 Mind, April, 1893 : — i George Croom Robertson as a teacher.' 

2 Those in this volume were prescribed in the last course he 
delivered in Psychology (189 1). I have only added, for preparatory 
reading, references to passages in certain works referred to by 
him, but not precisely specified. The headings of the lectures and 
sections, introduced to help the reader, are also mine. 



Introductory Note. ix 

easily admit of being welded with sufficient simplicity of 
handling into the particular line I had selected to follow. 
Woven together, and imperfectly woven, as the lectures are 
from many strands, the warp and the woof are the work 
of George Croom Robertson. 

Injustice to his thought in its full expression and ideal 
exposition there is and must be. The book on Hobbes, 
in the series of Philosophical Classics for English Readers, 
and the Philosophical Remains, edited by Professor Bain and 
Mr. Whittaker, are with us to vindicate the style, and, 
so far as those writings go, the trend and quality of his 
thought. They represent the limits to which his strength, 
handicapped by illness, and sorely taxed by professional 
duties, could reach in surplus effort. But the best of that 
strength was spent, and more than spent, on his paedagogic 
work. It was from the Grote Chair to us, his keenly 
interested though immature critics, that he outlined and to 
some extent ' bodied out/ as he would have said, and that 
with a frankness and fullness never given to his literary 
utterances, those philosophical judgments, growing directly 
out of his psychological theories, which he did not live to 
express fully to the world. I need hardly say there was 
nothing esoteric in this. Had he lived there can be little 
doubt — at least to the reader of the philosophical manual — 
but that in his own fullness of time he would have further 
developed and set down much on which he was reserving 
judgment till he found leisure for the strain of supreme con- 
centration. It is doubtful whether, in view of the precarious 
state of his health, he would have also completed the manual 



x Introductory Note. 

of psychology which illness, and then his promise to write 
the volume on Hobbes, compelled him to lay aside. That 
he would have persisted in his intention of resuming it had 
he, on resigning his professorial and editorial posts, been 
able to foresee with some confidence the coming of several 
years of heaLhful leisure, instead of the gloomy outlook of 
uncertain strength and lonely bereavement that remained for 
him, is probable. Many important treatises on Psychology, 
when he ceased lecturing, were just appearing, or about to 
appear ; nevertheless, with his strong convictions on certain 
psychological theories, and with the extreme explicitness with 
which he evolved his own philosophy out of its psychological 
basis, it is not likely that he would have given his philo- 
sophical principles any adequate expression without also 
setting forth that basis as it ordered itself in his own con- 
sciousness. 

Meanwhile, between us and what might or would have 
been wrought Death has stood ; and it was left for his pupils 
to choose either to suffer his oral teaching to have reached 
its term of usefulness, and the theories and doctrines worked 
out in it to remain in oblivion, or, by comparing what they 
had recorded, to preserve somewhat of them in some such 
form as is here attempted, even though it were at the risk 
of doing what he himself, not foreseeing an end so untimely, 
would scarcely have sanctioned. At the instigation of Pro- 
fessor Croom Robertson's distinguished countryman, the 
Editor of this series, and of Professor Sully, his successor 
in the Grote Chair, with the encouragement also of Mr. Stout, 
his successor to the Editorship of Mind, I chose the latter 



Introductory Note. xi 

alternative. I have tried to make students of a succeeding 
generation acquainted with the methods of a great method- 
ologist, and with the philosophic standpoints of a teacher 
who for many years worthily represented and further 
developed the best traditions of a great school. This way 
it has seemed possible to render his thought and the memory 
of his work a truer justice than by letting discretion wait 
in silence on counsels of perfection. 

At the same time the lectures, following as they do in the 
rank and file of an educational series, are not, in their first 
intention, a memorial production. To the student reader, 
whose interests they are of course especially intended to serve, 
they should afford not merely an introduction to psychology 
and also to philosophy, but an introduction to philosophy 
by way of psychology — more especially to philosophy under 
the aspect of theory of knowledge (epistemology) by way 
of the psychology of the process of coming-to-know. No 
other two manuals so adapted, to the best of my belief, 
exist. No one has more stoutly upheld the claims of 
psychology to the rank and dignity of a natural science than 
Croom Robertson. Dealing as it does, like other natural 
sciences, with phenomena as we find them, and, like other 
'abstract' sciences, with phenomena under a certain aspect, 
namely, of subjective experience and its manifestations, it 
calls, so he held, for the most rigid scientific procedure 
that it was possible to apply. And, as expounded by him, 
the study of mind became almost as forcible an organon for 
instilling the principles of scientific analysis as one of the 
experimental quantitative sciences. To resolve the complex 



Xll 



Introductory Note. 



into the simple, to show clearly the distinction and the bond 
when classifying, to elicit what was really the ground-notion 
of a class, to explain the less general in terms of the more 
general, to detect among phenomena the law of their 
happening, and to verify it by a question of crucial test, — all 
this really simple procedure, uniformly and consistently 
carried out, gradually and deeply impressed on the mind 
the unity of that scientific procedure which it is the true 
aim of any teacher to impart. Read as giving some insight 
into that procedure as applied to the matter, and adjusted 
to the standpoint, of psychology, this volume should prove 
of permanent value, even though the progress of research 
may render some of its conclusions invalid. Still more 
should this hold good for it when read as a groundwork 
for the philosophical principles in the companion manual 
[Elements of General Philosophy). The student should none 
the less remember that the lectures are, as they were bound 
to be, elementary. They were and are meant to be no more 
than a first guide to more thorough reading in ' the Books ' 
(as the Professor used to call the collective literature on the 
subjects in question), not to supersede that oral instruction 
on which he used to insist as of almost vital importance in 
his own field. 

It may be well to add a few words on those more specially 
prescribed treatises to which the psychological lectures 
formed at times and to some extent a running commentary. 
The Professor usually set two handbooks for constant 
reading, varying one of them every few years — either it 
might be Professor Sully's Outlines of Psychology, or Pro- 



Introductory Note. xiii 

fessor Clark Murray's Handbook, or Professor Hoffding's 
Outlines. In prescribing the last, as soon as Miss Lowndes's 
translation appeared, he remarked that, in addition to more 
solid virtues, its presentation was thoroughly interesting, and 
that its un-British methods and standpoints afforded an 
instructive comparison. Advanced students were repeatedly 
recommended to master Dr. Ward's article, 'Psychology/ 
Passages in Mr. Spencer's treatise and in Taine's De 
V Intelligence were always decreed. But as the pupil of 
Professor Bain, and as representing in essential points that 
school of which he is the most direct and eminent outcome, 
the lecturer made the manual of Mental Science at once the 
most constant and most closely criticised subject of his 
hearers' study. In the course of years his treatment diverged 
more and more from that followed in the manual; but he 
not only continued to recommend it as on the whole best 
1 covering the ground,' but found in the criticism of it the 
best way of throwing his own position into relief as well as 
of sharpening the critical insight of his class. 

Finally, for kind assistance in reading the proofs and for 
valuable advice on many points of style and matter, my very 
grateful acknowledgement is here rendered to Mr. Charles 
Robertson and to Mr. Thomas Whittaker, Editor of the 
Philosophical Remains of George Croom Robertson. 

Caroline A. F. Rhys Davids. 

February , 1896, 



CONTENTS 



LECTURE PAGE 

I. Philosophy of Mind and the Science of Psycho- 
logy i 

II. The Place of Psychology among the Sciences . 6 

III. Consciousness; its Continuity. Psychological 

Analysis 12 

IV. The Ultimate Facts in Psychological Analysis 19 
V. The 'Subject' of Subjective Experience. Objec- 
tive Psychology 26 

VI. Physiological Psychology 32 

VII. Concomitance between Mind and Eody . . 40 

VIII. Growth of Mind. The Stage of Sense . . 47 

IX. General Sense. Specific Energy of Nerve . 58 

X. The Special Senses 67 

XI. General Considerations on the Senses . . 75 

XII. Muscular Sense 83 

XIII. Active Sense and Qualitative Difference in 

Sensation 89 

XIV. Sensation and Sense-Perception .... 94 
XV. The Psychological Theory of Objective Percep- 
tion 100 

XVI. The Psychological Theory of Objective Percep- 
tion {continued) 107 

XVII. The Psychological Theory of Objective Percep- 
tion {continued^ iia 



xvi Contents. 

LECTUR* PAGE 

XVIII. The Psychological Theory of Visual Perception i i 8 
XIX. The Psychological Theory of Visual Perception 

{continued) 125 

XX. Mental Construction. RepresentativeImagina- 

tion 132 

XXI. Representative Images, Normal and Abnormal 138 

XXII. The Laws of Representative Consciousness . 144 

XXIII. Suggestion and Association . ., . .154 

XXIV. Resolution of Association into the Laws of 

Intellection 160 

XXV. Thought. Percept, Image, Concept . . .165 
XXVI. Percept and Concept; their Interdependence 

and Evolution . . 171 

XXVII. Thought, Logic, and Language . . .177 
XXVIII. Feeling as Subjective Affection . . .185 
XXIX. Feeling and Intellection. Expression. Sense- 
Feeling 191 

XXX. Emotion 198 

XXXI. Classifications of the Emotions. Explanations 

of Pleasure and Pain 206 

XXXII. Esthetic Feeling 213 

XXXIII. Conation and its Modes 219 

XXXIV. Modes of Conation {continued). Instinct . .227 
XXXV. Volition and Control 237 

XXXVI. Attention and the Ego 247 

APPENDIX. 

On Theories of Latent or Unconscious Mental Modi- 
fications 253 

INDEX 263 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



LECTURE I. 

PHILOSOPHY OF_MIND AND THE SCIENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

Introductory. 

Some words of introduction to our subject are necessary : 
but I shall here be very brief. Notice first the title of this 
Chair 1 or class. It is unique, and the result of a series of 
accidents of which no more now. But what is its rationale ? 
Is it adhered to in the course ? 

1 Logic ' is dealt with in the second term, and ' Philosophy* 
more directly in the third. And Ethics, whatever else it may 
mean, and although it does not come explicitly into the title, 
is generally allowed to be Philosophy, just as Logic also, 
whatever else it means, claims also, and with reason, to be 
Philosophy. We have still to prove that in dealing in this 
course with Psychology, we are consistent with the title. How 
far is Psychology a part of the ' Philosophy of Mind ' ? 

1 I.e. of the Grote Chair, University College, London: — l Philo- 
sophy of Mind and Logic.'— Ed. 

B 



2 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

Psychology and Philosophy, 

What does Psychology mean ? 

The word Psychology, which began to be used in the 
course of the seventeenth century, but in England not until 
the middle of this century, means Mind plus Reasoning or 
Science — Science of Mind — just as Biology is the Science 
of Life. Now, as Science of Mind, Psychology is concerned 
with Philosophy of Mind. And this brings me to my first 
point. 

The term Philosophy, while it is not exhausted by science, 
may be considered to include science and may be used to mean 
science. It is a word with a great history. With the Greeks 
from 600 to 300 B.C. it meant the equivalent to what we now 
seek to convey by the term science, viz. a body of reasoned 
knowledge. But now that science has acquired the meaning 
which Philosophy used to bear, Philosophy has come to be 
used in a special sense and with a distinct meaning. Where 
we now say Physics or Science of Nature, Newton said 
Natural Philosophy, or Philosophy of Nature. And all 
science which did not deal with what was called Nature was 
distinguished as Mental and Moral Philosophy. Thus when 
this chair was founded, Philosophy of Mind meant Science 
of Mind, or Psychology. But Philosophy means more than 
Psychology, and more than Science. It may in the modern 
sense be loosely defined as the analysis of the ultimate 
notions that underlie all the sciences. Moreover it includes 
Logic and Ethics, nor is it even then exhausted. But we 
may begin, it we may not end, by regarding Philosophy of 
Mind as Science of Mind. For us at this stage let Philosophy 
of Mind be this science of Psychology. 



L] Elements of Psychology. 3 

Psychology as a Science among the Sciences. 

What now is meant by a science of anything ? 

Science is knowledge acquired by reasoning, knowledge 
not merely * picked up ' by experience, but which, given by 
experience, has been systematised by way of reasoning. This 
holds good for every particular science. What therefore 
we are now concerned with is reasoned knowledge about 
Mind. 

Note here how students of Mind must in a way face all 
knowledge. For if Science be reasoned knowledge, and 
reasoning be a function of the Mind, they alone can say what 
Science is by defining what reasoning is. 

How can we best set about getting a reasoned knowledge 
of Mind? Our chief difficulty lies in the nature of Mind. 
In any other science you can easily grasp the meaning of 
its subject. But I cannot tell you what Mind, the subject of 
these lectures, is. I cannot produce it and put it on the 
table; and I cannot draw it. Let us try to get a definite 
notion of it by classifying the sciences and striking out all 
with which it is not concerned, so as to see where among 
them we may place Psychology. For all progress of know- 
ledge is by way of Assimilation; i.e. by finding something 
already known to you with which you may connect the new 
knowledge. 

Science is general knowledge, for all reasoned knowledge 
is general. But some knowledge is more general than other 
knowledge, and the less general is dependent, as to its rank, 
upon the more general. Let us take four of the sciences 
which in their scope are representatives of all Science, and 
fundamental, or, as they have usefully been called, Abstract 
sciences, — and by abstract I mean sciences dealing with 
different aspects of things, or with things viewed in certain 

b 2 



4 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

aspects only. And let us proceed to tabulate them according 
to Decreasing Generality and Increasing Speciality, viz. — 

(i) Mathematics, dealing with things in respect of 
Quantity, or the quantitative aspect of things. 

(2) Physics, dealing with things in respect of Motion 

(Quantity assumed). 

(3) Chemistry, dealing with things in respect of (atomic) 

composition (Quantity and Motion assumed). 

(4) Biology, dealing with things in respect of Life (Quan- 

tity, Motion, and Atomic Composition assumed). 

Each of these is less general and more special than its 
predecessor. And to them we may add as (5) Psychology, 
dealing with things in respect of Mind, and thus, the other 
four properties or aspects being assumed, presenting a yet 
more special aspect of things. More things live than things 
which are mentally endozved. 

Note that we may go yet further in specialising, and rank 
as (6) Sociology, dealing with things as having sociality. 
Only things having mind will form societies. Again, we 
might have classed before Mathematics Logic, considered as 
the most general of the sciences, in that it deals with things 
as thinkable, or under the aspect of relation in general. 

Note too, as to the rest of the sciences, that in proportion 
as they become more concrete, they become more descriptive 
and less explanatory : relatively speaking, they are Science 
in the making. And as concrete, they deal with kinds, and 
not with aspects, of things. Botany is concrete ; plants are 
kinds. Biology is abstract ; life is an aspect. 

We have now gained my second point, and that is, that 
from this point of view, and from this only, namely that of 



L] Elements of Psychology. 5 

generality in scope, Mind may be regarded as a kind of 
Life, and hence we have found a place for Psychology. 
It is an abstract science, more special than Biology, more 
general than Sociology. But, as I shall proceed to show, 
this is not the place of Psychology. 



For Lecture II read : — 
Bain, ch i, commencing at § 3 ; Hoffding, I, § 1. 
Note. Hoffding should be read in subordination to Bain t 



LECTURE II. 

THE PLACE OF PSYCHOLOGY AMONG THE SCIENCES. 

Scheme of Fundamental Sciences. 

Objective. Subjective. 

[Logic] 
i. Mathematics. Psychology. 

2. Physics. 

3. Chemistry. 

4. Biology. 

5. Psychology 

6. Sociology. 



Regulative doctrines or disci- \ Logic, 
plines {not sciences) dependent upon r JEsthetics. 
Psychology. ' Ethics. 



Why, and in what sense, does Psychology occupy, and 
alone occupy, this second column ? 

Mind as Life. 

What is it to have life ? Take a tree, and this piece of 
chalk. The one deports itself in a way very different from the 
other; it grows, respires, moves. What is it to have Mind} 
Take a tree and a dog or a man. Both the latter in one 
respect will deport themselves very differently from the former. 
Strike each, and see. What is it to be social} To act in 
a way very different from beings who are unsocial. Under 
such a purely external aspect, that of deportment, behaviour, 
outward manifestation, we can regard Mind. I do not say 
we ought to do so. Now our left-hand column is concerned 



Elements of Psychology. 7 

with things as they behave, or appear to us ; and of such 
external aspects Mind, as a kind of behaviour, apparent to all 
of us at once, may be regarded as one. 

Mind as Subjective Experience. 

But is this aspect of Mind all that we mean by Mind ? 
Every one of us has a ' mental experience ' : this is not 
external deportment. Not that Psychology is therefore out 
of place in the left-hand column. We infer the presence of 
mind in others by external deportment, whatever more we 
know of ourselves. But we do not only mean, that a man 
throws his arms about in a certain way, and the like, when 
we say he has mind; we mean more, and something 
requiring a new kind of phraseology. For the acts above 
spoken of are signs of something which we are otherwise 
conscious of; in fact the ultimate expression for mind is 
Consciousness. And we may say, that our former concep- 
tion of mind is external manifestation of consciousness. Mind 
is the name for a certain kind of experience each finds he has 
for himself '; whatever else it means, it stands for a certain 
something I experience in and for myself. When we shut 
our eyes upon the great and varied spectacle of external 
nature, another spectacle, great and varied, lies open to the 
view of an ' inner eye/ Not only do we see ourselves as 
moving bodies in one vast outer world of earth and sun and 
stars, but we are each of us also aware of somewhat falling 
under our own peculiar ken. The pleasure that I have in 
looking at a landscape is part of my experience, and not 
yours, though you may be looking out upon the same stretch 
of wood and river. You may be wholly indifferent, while 
I am thrilled with delight ; or if you too are not unmoved, 
your pleasure Is yours as mine is mine. Or again, the scene 



8 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

may for me call up some long-past memory ; while you, as 
you gaze, may be picturing instead some change in the 
prospect to be wrought in coming years. 

This inner personal experience of each of us is what we 
more especially call mental, and we distinguish the Mind to 
which it is referred from the World or Nature whereby we 
seem to be affected. Or rather, we suppose one world of 
things, and over against it a multitude of minds that are 
variously affected by it as they take it in. From this point 
of view also, Mind is often spoken of as subject in relation to 
the World as object, and the word subjective expresses very 
aptly that kind of personal experience just called ' mental ' in 
opposition to the objective world, or world of objective expe- 
rience that we seem to have in common. Words here are 
ever inadequate ; we grope for them ; nevertheless we may 
with relative determinateness say that mind is a name for sub- 
jective experience — subjective as ' lying under ' the ken of each 
of us immediately, as what is personally, individually, specially 
experienced, as what is, in a peculiar and intimate sense, 
mine and not thine. And subject is the name for the possessor 
of this special experience. 

Thus far at this stage. Let the student take up the terms 
as useful for mental experience proper. They suggest 
a division by which we may rail off our other sciences from 
mental science proper. In the former we have objective aspects 
of things ; they seek to take account of all the various aspects 
and departments of the world of objective experience in which 
we live and move. ' Objective ' is ' what lies over against ' us 
— 'in the way of' me, as e.g. this piece of chalk. In 
objective science we think, not so much of ourselves or of 
things as personally related to us, as of the objects — ' chalk/ 
' dog/ ' ant-hill/ Here there is no direct reference to the 



il] Elements of Psychology. 9 

knowing self or subject, though an indirect reference there 
always is \ ' The chalk is on the table ' is an objective state- 
ment ; chalk or table is nothing tome; I relate them one to 
the other. But take an expectation, a determination, grief, 
remembrance. At once there is involved, Whose expecta- 
tion ? Yours ? Mine ? Who is the subject of it ? And it 
is because mind is a something which has its full and 
fundamental meaning only as it is subjectively, and not objec- 
tively, regarded, that we must make room for psychology in 
another and unique column. Our science is double-faced in 
a way different from any purely objective science. As objective 
science psychology is only supplementary to subjective 
psychology, and has no meaning apart from it. We attribute 
mind to others because we see in them the same outward 
manifestations that are apparent in ourselves. It is only 
a very shallow examination of mind which concludes that it 
can be studied just like any other object. Let mind be 
studied through the nervous system and external manifesta- 
tions by all means, but let it be borne in mind that we 
have something ' not without ' far more important to study. 

1 This is proved by the very phrase 'objective experience.' The 
things or objects of common life and physical science — stones, trees, 
and the like— do also in a manner concern the psychologist or mental 
inquirer. However we may view, or speak of, objects out of relation 
to mind, they must for this be known or mentally apprehended. 
Mental experience, as regards our landscape, includes not only the 
different feelings or imaginations excited in you and me, but also 
the vision of wood and stream that we seem to have in common. My 
sight of a tree is as much mental as any state of grief or joy, and is in 
truth not less personal to me— not less subjective in one respect, how- 
ever it may be called objective in another. There is, in fact, a w r ider 
and a narrower use of the word 'subjective/ and it is in nothing 
short of the widest sense that psychology must be said to deal with 
our subjective experience. 



io Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

Psychology a Natural Science. 

Here be it noted that, were it not for mathematics, we 
might have called the Objective Sciences Natural Sciences — 
though not all of them in the narrower sense of ' natural/ 
In the wider sense ' natural ' covers all science. All science 
properly is natural, else it is not science. Natural is not 
merely external, or infra-human nature, but whatever we find 
and can take account of, or have experience of. * Natural* 
nowadays rather indicates method than matter. Psychology, 
then, is just as much a natural science as physics ; and as 
such it calls equally for rigid scientific procedure. Now we 
cannot expose mind for analysis like a plant, yet each can 
observe its working in his own experience more closely, more 
certainly, than anything else. 

Consciousness. 

Mind is a name for all our experience as we are conscious of 
it. Consciousness (con scire) is what I am azvare of in the 
most intimate way, ' with ' or in relation to myself, what I 'know 
with myself/ And within consciousness we have the fact of 
Self-consciousness — not so much the having this or that 
experience as that it is an experience specially of Me, of my 
Ego. Consciousness, for me, will include my perceiving of 
objects as well as my feeling of pleasure or pain — when, 
namely, I am communing with myself or, as we otherwise 
express it, ' reflecting/ or ' looking within/ Now there is 
nothing which the sciences take account of objectively that 
psychology does not take account of subjectively. All objects 
as such come within the range of our consciousness, and this 
objective consciousness together with the subjective conscious- 
ness of our own thoughts and feelings as such make up the 



IL] Elements of Psychology. n 

whole of our mental experience. Things as knowable, 
together with the knower — these are the materials of the 
psychologist. 



For Lecture III read : — 
Hdffding, I, §§ 4-6, 8; Ward, pp. 42, 45. 

Cf. also G. C. Robertson on Maudsley's Physiology of Mind: Philos 
Remains, p. 353 {Mind, ii, 235). 



LECTURE III. 

consciousness; its continuity, psychological analysis. 

So far then we have seen (i) that Philosophy must in the 
first place concern us as Science, and (2) the peculiarity of 
Psychology and the kind of place it takes when connected 
with the other sciences. I said that this peculiarity calls for 
special language. Let us discuss further some of these 
special terms. 

Mind and Metaphor. 

If we speak of mind as l internal/ ' inner ' experience, 
to contrast it with external things, it is not for any really 
definite meaning we can attach to it by those expressions. 
The mind of each of us is not in a strict sense inside any of 
us. Even ! subjective ' is just as metaphorical and belonging 
to external description as any other term. In 'conscious 
experience ' we get a word significant, expressive, and not 
borrowed. ' Conscious ' and ' consciousness ' are slightly 
metaphorical too, but let no more be said against them ; 
they grew up for psychological purposes and — without closing 
the question whether mind and consciousness are com- 
mensurate, whether there is not mental experience which 
is not consciousness — the Litter word is a useful general term 
for the whole of our mental experience. It is not surprising 
to find that our psychological language is metaphorical. 



Elements of Psychology. 13 

Language originally was merely for work-a-day purposes of 
life. Mankind had to live before it could think. ■ Perception/ 
e. g., meant a thorough grasp of anything by the hand, but is 
now used in psychology in a very special metaphorical sense. 

Psychologising by Introspection. 

The terms 'self-consciousness/ ' reflexion/ 'introspection/ 
as we have seen, express, each and all of them, the peculiar 
standpoint of one who is ' psychologising,' or subjectively 
observant. In saying ' I perceive an object/ there is either 
no reference, or no prominent reference, to mind or self, but 
in saying ' I perceive an object/ I am conscious to myself, 
in the reflective or introspective attitude, that I am knowing, 
and that my knowing is of the special kind called perception. 
All these words, consciousness ', reflexion, introspection, seek 
to mark what is peculiar to mental experience as such; 
and the reference away from things or objects becomes 
still more marked when, instead of consciousness, we speak 
of ^^consciousness. ' Self-consciousness ' here implies no 
moral emphasis, but only a self-occupied state of mind. 
1 Reflexion/ which is more metaphorical, suggests the mind 
bending back upon itself; ' Introspection/ the mind looking 
within. Here again is metaphor. Beware of the objective 
force of ' intro ' clinging to it. Now Psychology is said to 
depend upon, to be developed by, the method of Introspection. 

Comte * and others, e.g. Dr. Maudsley 2 , maintain that 
observation by way of introspection is not only useless but 
impossible. For, they say, in observing our states of mind 
we lose them, or at least modify them, as e. g. when we 

1 Positive Philosophy (London, 1875), vol. i, pp. 381, 389; on 
'interior observation.' 

2 The Physiology of Mind (London, 1876), eh. i. 



14 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

try to analyse a feeling of sorrow or a burst of indignation. 
It is not however true that an analysis of toothache takes 
away the toothache. Nor is the modification induced by the 
intellectual phase of attention without value in the analysis of 
mind. However it be the case (as cannot be denied) that 
such observation needs to be very carefully made and tested 
before the observer can take his own conscious experience as 
duly representative of the conscious experience of others, 
this may make psychological inquiry difficult, but does not 
make it unscientific. Its opponents have always forgotten 
that so-called external or objective observation, as practised in 
the physical sciences, itself implies the validity of subjective 
observation. Not to say that the simplest act of looking 
at a physical object is after all, in one sense, a subjective 
process, there is certainly involved, in anything that can 
be called a scientific observation of physical objects, a com- 
parison of present with previous impressions. This has no 
value, unless it be assumed that a purely subjective representa- 
tion can be attended to and made to stand for the original 
experience. But this is just what is assumed by the psychologist 
when, being in a state, say, of feeling, he begins to practise 
introspection and seeks to determine the character of the 
state in itself and as related to other states. In reflecting 
upon the feeling he has indeed ceased to feel, or to feel 
so intensely, but he has the feeling still as much before 
him as the physical inquirer has before him all the pas* 
experience which he uses to interpret his present impressions. 
Without making light of the difficulties attending introspection, 
we may therefore rest satisfied that there is no reason why 
it should not, when properly conducted, lead to results of 
a purely scientific character. 

For the present, then, we may take these three terms 



in.] Elements of Psychology. 15 

as synonymous expressions for observation which is the 
opposite of external — for observation of consciousness, or 
subjective experience. This, when we investigate the scope 
of it, divides itself into two parts, objective consciousness and 
subjective consciousness. Objective consciousness is con- 
sciousness of objects. ' That pillar supports the ceiling/ 
Here is the objective point of view. But if I examine the 
sensations, judgment, or belief expressed in that statement, 
I require the attitude of introspection, of subjective con- 
sciousness. Consciousness includes both kinds of experience. 

The Fundamental Datum of Psychology. 

Now I maintained that mind, in our fundamental con- 
ception of it, is a name for our subjective experience. 
E. g. through your presence and your actions here and now, 
which are objective manifestations, I infer in you mind. I do 
not dwell on these ; I credit you directly with mind ; they 
have a meaning only in terms of subjective experience. 
So for animals. A dog howls : we say, it is in pain, putting 
ourselves at the subjective point of view of the dog, and 
ascribing to it feelings more or less akin to our own. 
Subjective experience is our primary or ultimate datum, 
the Alpha or Omega— which we please — of Psychology, and 
cannot be explained in terms of any other kind of ex- 
perience. Metaphysically, we may question, What is the bearer 
of this subjective experience, what is its Subject ? But 
for Psychology the fact of that experience is ultimate and our 
starting-point. 

The Business of the Course. 

What does this subjective experience include ? Of what, 
in what ways, are we conscious ? What are the scientific 



16 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

conditions of our consciousness ? What are the Laws deter- 
mining our conscious experience? How may we describe 
in order to explain ? For science has to find the law 
of a certain kind of fact or phenomenon, and this is the 
business of our course. Let the student first see, before 
proceeding farther, that he gains at least a general view 
of what lies before him, such for example as Professor Bain 
gives in his Division I, or Mr. Spencer in his chapter on ' The 
Composition of Mind/ He should read also Hamilton's 
Metaphysics, Lecture XI, on the ' Classification of Mind/ 
And let those students who compare their other reading with 
Dr. Ward's articles on Psychology, note that his more abstruse 
classification differs from mine more in appearance than in 
reality. 

The Continuity of Subjective Experience, 

The first thing that strikes us in our conscious experience 
is the continuity of it. It is coherent. Mind, I repeat, has 
the character — a character adequately brought out only by 
Dr. Ward among psychologists — of continuity as its most 
prominent, salient feature. As we sit silently with closed 
eyes, there is for each of us a flow of consciousness in 
a certain continuous manner. And if my eyes are open 
my consciousness has still the character of continuity. But 
now it is more complex ; it includes, besides that flow with 
closed eyes, this large mass of objects before me, constituting 
a ' continuum ' — book on paper, paper on table, table on 
floor, and so on. And besides all this I am conscious 
of a certain amount of feeling ; a desire to make myself 
understood ; a belief that those to whom I am speaking, are, 
while looking at me, in a state of anxiety to understand ; a 
determination not to be longer than an hour — all inextricably 



iil] Elements of Psychology. 17 

interwoven with this consciousness of objects. The con- 
tinuity gets broken off, periodically, for instance, in sleep, in 
dreamless sleep, dreamland being a kind of middle ground. 
But waking and healthy consciousness is a continuity, though 
varying indefinitely as to its fullness, just as a literal, 
objective flow, such as a river, may vary in fullness, breadth, 
rapidity. Or as a * web ' may vary in the complexity and 
colour of the weaving, or a ' stage ' be more or less occupied 
by actors struggling to obtain a hearing. To all of these 
has conscious experience been likened. 

Mental Analysis, 

But if we simply attend to its continuity we shall get no 
further than description, more or less poetical. What we want 
is scientific treatment of mind, and science in the first place is 
analytic. Analysis is the way of insight. Science is insight by 
way of analysis. Afterwards, it is synthetic. Your psychology 
is worthless if it end not, as to its final aspect, as it began, 
viz. with a continuity. But as a child, crying out for pain, 
breaks up its continuum, so must psychologists do deliberately, 
breaking up (a very metaphorical term, I grant) this initial 
aspect to attend to particular facts of mind. And this is 
possible ; e. g. annoying sounds of students romping in the 
corridor come into my consciousness : to the extent I am 
annoyed, so far may my consciousness be particularised 
in a separated strand. It may be singled out and identified ; 
to this extent we are scientific observers, though it be not 
the whole of consciousness. 

What are the terms for these strands ? English psycho- 
logists, for better for worse, use States of Mind. Some 
purists object to the term on different grounds. Alternative 
terms are ' elements/ ' facts/ ' moments/ ' phenomena/ of 

c 



18 Elements of Psychology. 

consciousness. Another word admissible for this or that 
state of consciousness is * presentation/ This corresponds 
exactly to Vorstellung, the word used by German psychologists 
for what Lewes called a Feeling. Any ' moment ' within the 
continuous flow of consciousness can be called a presentation. 
Vorstellung, when indicating such a general moment, is often 
incorrectly translated ' representation/ The room in which 
I am sitting is my presentation ; so is this ink-bottle, if I fix 
my attention on it, or so is a pain arising in my finger. 
If, again, my consciousness be withdrawn from all that 
is present, and I think of my house some miles away, the 
image called up is my presentation ; but it is in this case 
also my representation, for it is an image, and not what 
I perceived an hour ago actually before me. 

Whichever term we select, our business is to explain 
consciousness in so far as it can be resolved by analysis; 
and in so far as we do this we shall be proceeding 
scientifically. 



Note. — On the twofold standpoint of observation (usually called 
Methods) in psychology, the student may profitably read Professor 
Bain's article— l Introspection and Psycho-physical Experiment/ 
Miid, ii (n. s.), 42. — Ed. 

For Lecture IV read : — 
Bain, ch. i, from § 3 ; HOffding, IV; Ward, pp. 39-44. 



LECTURE IV. 

THE ULTIMATE FACTS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS. 

Nature of Mental Analysis, 

We have looked at consciousness in a twofold aspect ; as 
not an aggregate but a continuous whole or continuum, and 
then — since attending to this collective character yields an 
object of interest but no science — as a succession of mental 
facts or congeries of states. And we have committed our- 
selves more or less to the word * state/ claiming to be able 
to distinguish different states of consciousness as relatively 
simple or complex. In attending to a state, we have so 
far broken up the continuum. But beware of supposing 
that consciousness is necessarily in one state at a time; 
rather it is in many, one being prominent. I may hear 
a sound from without and yet continue my lecture. Or 
some bad news may colour all the transactions of the day. 
We may be in ten states at once, states various and multiple. 
Herein comparison is possible, and herefrom we may form 
general assertions applicable to particular states. Mind, it is 
true, is not a thing that can be broken up into separate parts 
or divisions, as Professor Bain's procedure suggests; nor com- 
pounded, as Mr. Spencer's phrase 'composition of mind' 
seems to imply ; but it does admit of being held apart, 
in idea, for consideration, and this or that phase being 

C 2 



20 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

distinguished, e.g. a toothache, languor, determination. Man- 
kind have gradually devised forms of speech to distinguish 
this from that in mental experience, making, for purposes of 
life in regard to mind, a beginning of that which science 
carries on and tries to render perfect. 

The scientifically Ultimate Facts in Mental Analysis. 

Is there now any general way, at starting, of getting, and 
expressing in compendious foim, a survey of all the facts of 
mind ? 

The view of mind which commended itself to psychologists 
from Aristotle till this century is now abandoned, the view, i. e., 
of mind as an aggregate of powers or faculties, arranged 
oftener than not under two groups, viz. intellectual and active 
faculties or powers. The term ' faculty ' has been used 
both carelessly and carefully. Hamilton, in his Metaphysics, 
gives a conception and statement of a more careful use, into 
which we can go later on \ For descriptive purposes terms of 
faculty are useful. But science only describes with a view- 
to explain, and faculty-psychology has not explanatory efficacy. 
Aristotle himself did not work on this line, but his scheme 
suggested it. It has been tried long enough. 

Tripartite classification of Mind. Phases of Mind. 

But it was Hamilton to whom mainly we owe the intro- 
duction from Germany of a threefold classification dating 
from about the middle of last century, the scheme of more 
than one thinker, that notably of Tetens, one of Locke's 
many German disciples, which was adopted and promulgated 
by Kant. It is now widely admitted, though with varying 

1 Vide Elements of 'General Philosophy, Lect. XII. 



IV.] Elements of Psychology. . 21 

phraseology, that our whole mental experience presents three 
distinguishable phases ; not parts or divisions — we separate 
parts, we distinguish phases — but states or facts of conscious- 
ness, which may be exhaustively described for purposes 
of science — i. e. for subsequent explanation — in terms of 
three heads; and these heads, in Anglo-Saxon phrase, are 
Feeling, Knowing, Willing. Every fact of consciousness 
may be brought under one or more of these heads ; and this is 
the best way of distinguishing facts of mind for purposes of 
after-, or further, inquiry. 

Now to ' Knowing ' I prefer Intellection, and to Willing, 
Conation : my reasons I shall set out directly. 

Intellection, then Feeling and Conation — such is the order 
generally adopted, which I shall presently follow. But while 
there is good reason for taking it at this stage, I do not keep 
to that order in getting our general view. In the first instance 
our order will be Feeling ; then Conation in connexion with 
it; lastly Intellection. When dealing with the phases in 
detail, which is the second step in our analysis, I shall revert 
to the former order. 

Feeling. 

Feeling, for me — and, I believe, for everybody — is the name 
for all those mental experiences which consist essentially in 
our being affected, or acted upon, or more specifically passively 
affected. Affection is a better term than Feeling, and would 
be quite unexceptionable were it not for its narrower popular 
sense. As it is, I cannot get on without it. 

See here how notable and deplorable is the state of 
psychological language ! We cannot talk in terms of Feeling 
without using the phrase ' to be affected,' yet how ambiguous 
is this I * To be passively affected ' is perhaps more what 



22 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

is needed. Feeling is that phase of mind when one is 
affected by anything. Professor Bain falls back on a term which 
is safe if carefully used — ' Feeling is excitement/ Yet here 
again there is a narrower sense. ' To be affected ' is, after 
all, the more */*fective term. 

We have no adjective corresponding to the substantive 
'feeling/ True, the newspapers say, 'he spoke in feeling 
terms/ but such usage is not psychological. In psychology 
the adjective 'emotional' corresponds to the noun 'feeling/ 
Hence it should be borne in mind that the adjective 'emotional' 
has a wider significance than the noun ' emotion/ 

Pleasure and Pain, 

Feeling is practically summed up for us in two words, 
mutually related : — Pleasure and Pain. In pleasure we are 
pleasurably affected; in pain, painfully affected. Do our 
pleasures and pains constitute the whole range of our feelings ? 
Can we be affected neither painfully nor pleasurably ? Does 
e.g. the feeling of my clothes, or my contact with the floor, 
affect me in neither the one way nor the other, but ' neutrally ' ? 
For the present, however, we need not take this question into 
consideration. 

Feeling in Popular Use and in Psychology. 

In the terms Pleasure and Pain science adheres to the 
meaning of common usage. But Feeling as now used in 
psychology is a very late word. In popular use it means 
(a) the sense of touch (we Scotchmen claim even to 'feel 
a smell/ and with considerable psychological justification), (&) 
emotion, (c) consciousness in general, e.g. this table does not 
'feel ' when I strike it. To this meaning Mr. Spencer's usage 
is nearly related, as was that of Lewes. For Mr. Spencer, 



IV.] Elements of Psychology. 23 

Feeling is any distinguishable mental fact, anything you can 
distinguish in mind for separate scientific treatment. But by 
the majority of modern psychologists Feeling has come to 
mean those mental experiences in which we are affected 
in the forms of pleasure and of pain. 

Conation, 

Conation is intended to suggest just the opposite of Feeling, 
the antithesis of subjective affection. They are, as it were, the 
two poles of consciousness, viz. being affected passively — 
overtly acting. Professor Bain and most psychologists use Will 
(or Volition). I follow Hamilton in this term Conation (from 
conor, I try), which presents a parallel to the German use of 
Streben, Bestrelung, as distinct from Wollen, Wille, Will (or 
Volition) is too special a term for something so generic as 
a phase of mind. It is one thing ' to desire/ another ' to will.' 
But both are covered by the more elementary term Conation, 
or ■ tending to act.' 

Connexion between Feeling and Conaiion. 

While between Feeling and Conation there is antithesis, 
there is also relation. Conation is always activity determined 
by Feeling, feeling-guided action, the response to, reaction 
on, a feeling. I want to open the door. My anxiety is a 
certain subjective feeling which results in my opening the door. 
Feeling has its inevitable result in Conation, Conation its 
indispensable source in feeling. Conation is action for an end, 
and that end is always, in the first or last instance, expressible 
in terms of feeling, viz. the production, maintenance, or 
abatement of some feeling. Feeling need not be a salient 
point in Conation ; it may be nearly submerged ; it is always 
there. 



24 Elements of Psychology. [Lecx 

Intellection, 

Do conation and feeling sum up what we mean by mind ? 
In opening the door there was conation, and feeling, but was 
there not something between the two, connecting them ? 
There was knowledge, intelligence, that doors can be opened. 
I know (or guess) something to be a door, therefore I go 
to open (or try to open) it. Thus when we will in connexion 
with feeling, there is also bound up herewith and brought 
about that state of mind called knowing, cognition, intellect 
or intellection. 

I prefer the last term. It corresponds in form better than 
intellect to conation. Better than all it indicates an active 
process of mind. ' Cognition ' and * knowledge ' always have, 
beyond their psychological import, implications of a philo- 
sophical nature. You cannot use the word ' know ' without 
implying the object known, ' Intellection ' (and its adjective 
' intellective ') brings out only the subjective function. ' In- 
telligence ' may take too wide or too narrow a meaning, 
viz. either consciousness or cleverness. 

Discrimination and Assimilation, 
Whenever we are intellective, we are always so that we 
may be described as in a state which is a compound function 
of discrimination (negative aspect) and assimilation (positive 
aspect) : e.g. we discern a speck on the horizon, i.e. we dis- 
criminate it from the rest of the horizon, and we recognise it 
as a ship, i.e. we assimilate it to our past naval experience. 
Discrimination is saying what a thing is not, Assimilation is 
saying what it is. These are termed by Professor Bain, Con- 
sciousness of Difference and of Agreement. And he adds 
a third function, Retention. But be it noted that this is 
not on a level with the other two, but rather implied in hem. 



iv.] Elements of Psychology. 25 

Relation of Intellection to Feeling and Conation. 

Intellection unites both the other phases of mind. When 
we are intellective it is in consequence of having been 
affected. How could I say that that was a pillar, or the speck 
a ship, without being affected by way of my sight ? Intellec- 
tion also implies activity. All terms of intellection imply 
activity, e.g. perception, conception (a taking hold), especially 
voluntary attention, which is conation. Intellection, then, 
in a sense, comes between feeling and conation, facing 
both ways. Can we have any one of them without the 
others ? No, not in any real sense. We may single out one 
for examination ; we may describe our ' states ' in terms of 
one, the predominating aspect, but we are not now the one, 
now the other, and we ought indeed to describe the states 
in terms of all three. E.g. there is the bell ! We are affected 
by its sound; we discern and identify it as a bell; but we 
are mainly conative in consequence — I the lecturer, to finish, 
my hearers to depart. Towards special cases of purely one 
phase we can only approximate. To say certain states are 
emotional, intellective, conative, only means that one aspect 
is uppermost 



For Lecture V read : — 
Hdffding, I, § 8 e\ Spencer, Pt. II, ch. ii ; Ward, p. 39. 



LECTURE V. 

THE ' SUBJECT ' OF SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE. OBJECTIVE 

PSYCHOLOGY. 

We saw in the last lecture, by help of the bell, that in 
so far as we were intellective, we were so on a base of 
feeling, which led, through intellection, to an impulse to 
action. Many cases cannot be so clearly resolved into all 
three phases, but note here only that the three are distin- 
guishable, not separate. 

Mr. Spencers classification of Mental Elements. 

Now it is tempting to try to resolve all three into two, if 
not one. Let us have a word on Mr. Spencer's ' Composition 
of Mind.' His view is, that mind may be resolved into 
two elements, Feelings and Relations between Feeling. 

On the face of it he neglects Conation. Under which, 
we might ask him, are we to class it ? Mercier, a Spencerian 
— advanced students should read him * — calls Will a feeling. 
A good case might be made out for the other alternative. 
In so far as will is action for an end, you start from a basis 
of feeling and you work to a result of feeling ; and this 

1 Mind, ix. x ; The Nervous System and the Mind (London, 1888) ; 
Sanity and Insanity (Contemporary Science Series), especially ch. iii. 
(London, 1890). 



Elements of Psychology. 27 

makes will a 'relation between feelings.' But whatever Feeling 
may mean for Mr. Spencer, his ' relations between feelings ' 
correspond to our Intellection. But since Feeling is his 
widest genus for any fact of consciousness, he calls these 
* relations between feelings ' themselves feelings. Has he 
justification for this? and Lewes? and others? In popular 
langu ge, as we saw, yes. 'The table does not feel' means 
it is not conscious. We shall use Feeling in a more special 
sense, narrower, as we have seen, than theirs, and yet wider 
than that other popular sense of touch. 

The Subject of Mental Phenomena. 

Feeling, intellection, conation — any experience that can 
be described under one of these phases is mental) and for 
us mind is an aggregate of experiences and the collective 
name for those three. But what is it that experiences the 
experiences ? What is the bearer of them 1 ? Well, with 
this, the profoundest of all questions underlying all mental 
experience, we are not fitted to deal now. We cannot at 
this stage consider the question of personality, of the ' ego/ 
' me/ ' moi/ To this indefinite subject there is a reference in 
all mental experiences 2 . It is involved in all language. It 
is inextricably mixed up with our experience. 'I am aware 
of the door/ What is it that refers to the ' aware/ viz. that 
personal ' I ' ? What is it in intellection, feeling, conation, 
that knows, is affected, acts? Without reference to such 
a subject, there can be no science of mind. But it is 

1 Professor Hoffding says too much, Professor Bain too little, about 
this. The former proposes to avoid metaphysical discussion, yet really 
drags it in and mixes it up. 

3 Note that it is by no means the case that all mental facts or 
phenomena equally suggest, or are equally referable to, a subject. 



28 Elements of Psychology. LLect. 

a problem we must work up to, and then consider under 
Philosophy. Meanwhile, without raising the psychological, 
still less the philosophical, import of the Ego, we can — nay, we 
must — regard mind in the first instance as an aggregate 
of phenomena. To apply scientific process, we must treat 
any subject phenomenally (not in the misused journalistic 
meaning). And just as in physics we might examine the 
motion of a ball without being concerned about the con- 
stitution of the ball itself, so we can talk about mind as 
mental phenomena, appearances, manifestations, experiences, 
without considering what it is that has to experience. This 
admitted, we may proceed at once to a detailed consideration 
of our three phases. 

Objective Psychology. 

Or, first, since we are to consider mind as an aggregate of 
phenomena, is there any kind of phenomenon dealt with by 
science, which is in relation to mental phenomena — which is 
more especially in relation to them ? Living beings, and, 
in particular, human beings, exhibit physiological phenomena. 
Many of these, much that goes on in the body, has no 
direct relation to our mental experiences, and conversely. 
From this point of view psychology is a highly specialised 
physiology. Within the human organism there is the 
nervous system, and it is that nervous system of which the 
functions are in more immediate relation to our conscious 
experience. This has come to be understood only within 
the last two or three centuries. Aristotle had a great mis- 
conception of the nervous system as related to, or connected 
with, mind. He strongly insisted on the connexion of mind 
and body in a general way. But his entire ignorance of 
physiology, especially that of the nervous system, precluded 



v.] Elements of Psychology. 29 

him from entering into detail and from seeing the particular 
connexion between the two. He would have told us that, 
when he was thinking, feeling, or willing, something went on 
in his heart ; that all sense-organs contributed streams going to 
the heart by way of the heat of the blood, and there result- 
ing in consciousness ; and that the brain, ' being cold/ served 
but as a refrigerator, tempering the heat of the heart \ 

Since then, very slowly in the ancient world and only 
fully since the beginning of the seventeenth century and 
Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, it has 
revealed itself that among all physiological processes the 
most important for psychology are the nervous processes, 
and that Mind, as a name for a set of active processes, has 
its bodily explanation in the nervous system. Mind is 
related to the body. I will to raise my arm : I raise it 
Through what? Through the nervous system. Through 
it mind is related to body. Hence we need to consider it 
to some extent. Such inquiries constitute the science of 
Physiological Psychology, or we may also use the term 
Psychophysics, the science, that is, of mind as related to the 
nervous system. The term ' Mental Physiology' should be 
carefully avoided. 

Comparative Psychology. 

Can we say that Physiological Psychology is co-extensive 
with Objective Psychology ? No ; it is but a part of the latter. 
It is not only in connexion with the functions of the nervous 
system that mind can be objectively considered. The whole 
frame of things, the sum of natural processes, has been 
thought a manifestation of mind, of self-conscious personality. 
Certainly all the varied products of human art, from flint 

1 Vide De Genet at. Animalium, ii. 6; and Grote's Aristotle, p. 480. 



30 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

arrowheads, or rude scratches on pottery, to steam-engines 
or the Venus of Milo, are evidences of thought and feeling 
and desire. All forms of speech and literature, all manners 
and customs or social usages, the varied forms of religious 
worship, the whole recorded drama of human history, are 
but so much more material that may be used for the study 
of mind. All these are facts of the objective world, and the 
study of them with a view to discover the full range of 
mental phenomena is known as Folk-psychology (Vblfter- 
psychologie)) or consideration of the manifestations of mind 
as shown in the manners and usages of peoples. Still farther, 
we may add to the account the ways and habits of the lower 
animals as manifesting mind, a study which has of late been 
of considerable service in the furtherance of psychology. 
Again, Infant Psychology is now considered rightly as a very 
important branch of mental science, and falls within this 
same field of Objective or Comparative Psychology, there 
being little or no direct relations between us and a child 
on the subject of consciousness. 

All these are inquiries into the facts of the objective world, 
yet they have a subjective meaning, which the stars, for 
instance, have not. Never must it be forgotten that there 
can be no study of this kind without an implied, if not 
express, reference to the properly mental experience of which 
we are each subjectively conscious. Nobody who considers 
can doubt this for a moment. 

Physiological Psychology. 

Between Subjective and Objective Psychology comes 
Physiological Psychology. Mind in man proceeds in con- 
nexion with certain bodily processes. We may call habits, 
&c, products of mind, but they go along with, are con- 



V.] Elements of Psychology. 31 

comitants of, mental processes. Think what your gestures 
are to you, and what they are to me. All human com- 
munication proceeds by means of this concomitance. And 
since two or three hundred years folk have understood 
that all bodily processes which are of real account for, are 
directly in relation with, mental experience, are those of the 
nervous system. Working inwards, we have got from the 
universe to the nervous system. 

This concomitance justifies further considerations. 



For Lecture VI read : — 

Bain, I, ch. ii; Hoffding, II, §§ 1-7; Spencer, Pt. I, ch. iii and vi. 

Or the main facts respecting nervous structure and function may- 
be studied in any text-book of physiology, such as Huxley's or 
McKendrick's. 



LECTURE VI. 



PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 



Physiological department of Objective Psychology, 

The term ' psycho-physics ' expresses that department of 
physiological psychology which aims at establishing definite 
quantitative relations between physiological and psychological 
experiences, between stimulus and sensation. The corre- 
sponding adjective, ' psycho-physical/ is used in a wider sense 
to denote the observation of mind in relation to the bodily 
organism. For without considering the organic conditions 
of mind, I can know nothing except about my own mind, 
I am a 'solipsist/ Solipsism is that view of the universe 
which takes into account the subjective experiences of one's 
own mind only. It is only a solipsist who can do without 
the physiological department of psychology. Once we look 
beyond the purely subjective side, physiology is imperatively 
needed. A purely subjective psychology is indeed conceiv- 
able ; e. g. Dr. Ward's article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica 
proposes to proceed entirely apart from any kind of physio- 
logical consideration. Nevertheless, at some critical points 
the author finds himself compelled to take into account 
physiological phenomena. And indeed there are departments 
of psychological occurrences, or certain kinds of mental 
phenomena, of whxh it is perfectly vain to take any account 



VL] Elements of Psychology. 33 

without reference to their physiological implications. No 
definite explanation can be given of sense or sensation 
without a certain reference to bodily phenomena. If so, it 
becomes our duty to interweave with our subjective inquiry, 
and to refer as much as we can to, definite objective or 
physiological considerations. If so, it does seem necessary 
at the beginning to get some definite understanding of what 
in particular this nervous system is, to which we sometimes 
make reference, and at other times would like to refer, 
inasmuch as its processes stand in such special relation to 
mental processes. Our psychology should be as physiological 
as we can make it K 

We take account, then, of nervous processes in mental 
science, first of all because it is a fact that they accompany 
mental states, and that without a reference to them we leave 
the scientific statement of the ascertainable conditions or 
circumstances of mental action incomplete. But there is 
a still more cogent theoretic reason for bringing forward 
the physical side of the case, and the practical reasons are 
of the most obvious kind. 

First, as to the fact of the connexion. Evidence of the 
most multifarious kind and overwhelming in quantity is 

1 Mr. Spencer lays such stress on this, that he works into his 
psychology through physiology. In his general system of philosophy 
his book on the Principles of Biology comes before his Principles oj 
Psychology y and hence he is quite right to approach it by means of 
physiology. It is impossible to study mind without backward reference 
to bodily phenomena ; we are else acting like ostriches. At the 
same time the science of life and the science of mind should not be 
mixed up. The two studies must be taken apart. Professor Bain 
begins subjectively, and then, in his second chapter, with admirable 
judgment deals with the nervous system before proceeding to analyse 
sense-consciousness. Professor HOffdings principle of treatment 
is practically the same. 

D 



34 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

considered now to justify the assertion that every conscious 
experience whatever has concomitant with it some brain- 
process \ 

Process of inference by which we relate Mind and Nerves. 

Bodily processes which have a mental import are always 
ultimately, or primarily, nervous processes. Mr. Spencer's 
discussion of the nervous system is often too vague or 
assumes too much, but his chapter entitled ' ^Estho-physi- 
ology' — not a happy term — in which he deals with the 
connexion between subjective experience and nervous pro- 
cesses, is good and instructive respecting mental process 
objectively regarded, and nervous process subjectively re- 
garded. Following his indications I prepare my hearers for 
the study of this chapter. 

How do I get the inference that mental and nervous 
processes are connected ? The former I apprehend directly : 
of the latter in me I know nothing directly. Follow the steps 
of the inference by which I arrive at my own nervous system. 
Starting from a connexion, obvious to myself, between my 
mental experience and the general movements of my body, 
I next come to assert a connexion between your movements 
and a mental experience in you somewhat like mine; also in 
the case of lower animals than you. Next, by experimental 
observation of organisms living and dead I associate actions 
with nervous system. And thus I infer a nervous system 
in myself, with which my actions, and therefore my mental 
experiences, are associated. 

Nature of the relation between Mind and Body. 
What is the nature of this relation ? Does our generalisa- 

1 For a statement of the proofs of the connexion let the student 
read Bain, p. 5 (ch. ii). 



VI.] Elements of Psychology. 35 

tion about it work both ways ? Science says, there is reason 
to believe that every mental process has concomitant with it 
a nervous process in some organised body. But as to the 
specific character of the nervous process accompanying every 
mental process we are much in the dark, and probably shall 
ever be. Till we are not in the dark, till it can be demonstrated 
in detail, no one can compel you to accept the general statement. 
However, no law in the physical world has been, can ever 
be, demonstrated in every particular. 

Take the other way. You can not say, you can only 
imagine, many as are the psychological propositions which 
speculators have sought to establish on the belief, that to 
every nervous process there is some subjective process, or 
what can be interpreted in terms of subjective experience. 
As to the question of the possibility of an unconscious, or 
sub-conscious mental life, this is legitimate speculation, but 
the universality of the relation between nerves and mind is 
not made out as that between mind and nerves is. With 
every psychosis is concomitant a neurosis; but we cannot 
in the same way say, With every neurosis is concomitant 
a psychosis. The nervous system has other work to do 
than in connexion with mind, whereas mind always involves 
activity of a nervous system. To resume in other words : — 
Apart from the processes of the nervous system there is 
nothing which we can call consciousness. When we are 
subjectively conscious in any way some nervous changes 
are going on. When certain nervous changes take place, 
we have reason to believe that the subject of them is 
conscious. These facts together establish the validity of 
Physiological Psychology. Wherever a physiological state- 
ment does not admit of having a corresponding psycho- 
logical statement made along with it, it is to be regretted. 

d 2 



36 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

And there is no mental state but should admit of a con- 
ceivable expression in terms of physical process. 

The theoretic or scientific reason for trying to get a physical 
expression wherever possible is that physical phenomena 
admit of more definite investigation than subjective mental 
phenomena. Those mental states, like sensations, for which 
we are able to assign with some accuracy the specific nervous 
conditions, are those which are best understood, and this, we 
may fairly suppose, is because they lie so exceptionally open 
to investigation in their bodily aspect. Changes in the 
nervous system can often be studied by the same exact 
methods of measurement that are now applied to physical 
phenomena; and in determining the nervous fact we 
determine at least something about the corresponding mental 
fact. 

The Nervous System. 

What more now is important to add? This nervous 
system, which is of such account for our life generally, is 
made up wholly of two kinds of constituents — fibres and 
cells, which we may represent bylines and circles respectively — 
and appears as a large contorted mass in the skull, produced 
down the spinal column with many branches, like an inverted 
tree. The first thing to notice in those constituents is their 
extreme minuteness ; fibre and cell must be massed together 
before they are visible to the naked eye. Nerves consist of 
compound bundles of fibres, and these are white. When 
cells are massed together into ganglionic clusters they have 
a greyish appearance. Of nerve-fibres and nerve-cells there 
are millions distinguishable in the human system. And fibres 
and cells are in physical connexion with each other. Fibres 
always end in cells, and cells are always prolonged into fibres. 





vi.] Elements of Psychology. 3) 

Nerve Function, 

What goes on within the nervous process ? — for it is nervous 
function that concerns us more than structure. Some kind 
of change. Of what kind? Motion, as in all material 
change. ' Nerve-currents ' sounds learned and 
knowing, but is rash. Something neverthelebs 
does go from cell to fibre, from fibre to cell. 
Fig 1 ^ e ma y ima o e tne ver y simplest expression 
of nervous motion like Fig. 1, or, because of 
the multitude of involved fibres and cells, grouped in inter- 
related ' centres/ like Fisr. 2 : the arrow- 

O W o & 

heads indicating disturbance propagated to 
a cell, and passing out again by another 
,°v disturbance. The disturbance going in- 

ward is known as ' stimulus/ The stimulus 
effects ' liberation of energy ' in the cell. 
Fig. a. rp^ en ergy liberated passes out by another 

fibre in molecular disturbance known as * impulse.' Stimu- 
lation, liberation of energy, impulse, are all of them modes 
of molecular change, and this is only to be understood as 
change of motion. Different parts of the nervous system 
look differently to us, yet at every point within it where 
you can trace any action, it is found to be reducible to 
this simple scheme. What is in all this of importance for 
us is to bear in mind the two constituents and the two- 
fold function throughout the nervous system : cells and fibres 
grouped into nerve-centres and nerves, cells predominating 
in the former, fibres in the latter : the former, acting as 
storehouses of energy ; the latter, mainly, as conductors of 
motor disturbance. And the conductivity of nerves is twofold. 
Consider the spinal cord (sp. c). Each of its branching nerves 



38 



Elements of Psychology. 



[Lect. 




has two roots, an anterior and a posterior root. Separate at 

the root, they are connected for a space, then separate again. 

The posterior nerve (p) consists of fibres, the processes of 

which go inwards. The anterior nerve (a) consists of fibres, the 

processes of which go outwards. And 

these two sets of processes are called AA 

respectively afferent and efferent. 

Stimulus is conveyed by the former, 

impulse by the latter. This is simple 

on the face of it, but the proportion , 

of one to the other is less so. A slight Fi g- 3. 

stimulus may cause a very varying amount of impulse. A 

prick may cause me to lift one hand, two hands, cry out, 

even swoon. The nervous system is so inter-related that it 

may act in parts or as a whole. 

Not all nerves have double roots. All spinal nerves are 
so provided, but some of the cerebral nerves are purely motor 
(efferent), others purely sensory 1 . The optic nerve e.g. is 
purely sensory (afferent). 

I repeat, any working of nerve, however complex, follows 
the scheme given above. But not necessarily according to 
the whole of it. The bell is tanging, and in response to that 
stimulus the class-students' ears may be stopped. But if 
I, after being silent, begin to speak, there seems to be action 
going out, which is not in response to action going in — 
apparently — for before me are the expectant faces of those 
students. Still, in a better example we might see * going 
out* without c going in/ In other words, there are certain 
kinds of conscious experience which are, or appear to be, 

1 ' Motor' is a purely physiological term ; ' sensory* has unfortu- 
nately also a psychological meaning. It is better to use by preference 
the purely physiological terms ' afferent ' and ' efferent.' 



vl] Elements of Psychology. 39 

4 centrally initiated'; but, as a matter of fact, much that 
appears to be so, if inquired into far enough, may be shown 
to be 'peripherally initiated/ Whether or no there be 
spontaneous activity in the nervous system, it is certain that 
human beings (and animals) vary greatly in the amount of 
response made to any given stimulus. 



For Lecture VII read : — 

Bain, Bk. I, ch. i, § 5 ; Hoffding, II, § 7 ; III ; Hamilton, Lectures 
on Metaphysics, Lect. XVII 1. 
Spencer, Pt. I, ch. vi, § 41. 



LECTURE VII. 

CONCOMITANCE BETWEEN MIND AND BODY. 

Nervous Functions (continued). 

Consider more closely the nerve-centres. In them, as we 
saw, energy is stored up and ready to be liberated when 
a stimulus is brought in along an afferent nerve. Leaving 
aside the question whether that energy can be set free 
without a stimulus, mark that all centres are conductive to 
higher centres, except the highest, viz. the cerebrum. The 
spinal cord is itself an aggregate of centres all having 
a relative independence, i.e. capable to some extent of 
liberating impulse without first propagating the afferent 
stimulus to the brain. And as lower centres may be channels 
by which molecular motion is directed upwards, any higher 
system in reference to the lower system has a function of 
control. The control can be co-ordination, such as e.g. is 
needed to produce a complex action. The cerebellum is 
believed to have in the main a co-ordinating function. But 
the action of the higher centres is also inhibitory. A higher 
centre may stop the action of a lower centre, as e.g. in 
checking the withdrawal of a member which is undergoing 
injury, or the utterance of a cry. * Higher ' means more 
complex in the sense of containing all that the ' lower ' con- 
tains, so that the action performed in the lower centres is 



Elements of Psychology. 41 

repeated in the higher. Thus the highest, or brain, is in 
connexion with the whole nervous system, and is a represen- 
tation of, is liable to be affected from, and is liable to act 
upon, the whole nervous organism. And this is not true of 
any other centre. What goes on in the brain, however, is only 
a fact of molecular motion of a complex nature. 

Certain nerve-processes are of account, not for us as 
psychologists, but for physiologists alone. For example, if 
a nerve of the spinal cord is excited, it may result immediately 
in a motor discharge, in a closed circuit of nervous action 
involving no higher centre. Such are Reflex Actions, and 
are unaccompanied by consciousness. Even they are in 
a way of account for us, inasmuch as reflex action is the base 
of all more complex actions which are so accompanied ; and 
again, action going on in the nervous system in a mechanical, 
unconscious way is part of the work even of the brain. I say 
again, all neurosis is of the reflex type. In all cases of 
psychosis, therefore, the accompanying neurosis is of this 
type. And much action, now reflex or automatic, was 
originally conscious ; of which more later on. Whenever 
there is neurosis on occasion of which we are conscious, it 
goes by way of the brain; unless it go so, we are not 
conscious. 

Again, any action in the nervous system leaves a trace 

behind it in that system, and the oftener any particular action 

is repeated the more is the modification of structure and in 

function effected by its traces perpetuated, both as to stimulus, 

circuit, and impulse. This may help us to understand what, 

treated subjectively, would seem to be inexplicable, namely, 

memory. 

Cerebral Localisation. 

During the last twenty-five years efforts have been made to 



42 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

identify areas of the brain with conscious experience. For 
the simpler conscious experiences called Sense this has been 
accomplished ; at least various facts, though rather of a nega- 
tive kind, have been made out in that direction. Complete 
cerebral localisation, however, has not been settled even in 
the simplest forms of consciousness, and may never be 1 . 
Thus far only we affirm : (a) to every psychosis a neurosis, 
(6) we have reason to believe that there is no part of the 
nervous system where changes may not go on without being 
accompanied by consciousness, but that (c) the cerebral 
hemispheres are those parts which must be called into play 
before any nervous process can be accompanied by conscious- 
ness. Some think this statement to be quite beyond question, 
but I do not think it quite so certain that the cerebrum must 
necessarily be involved. 

Subconscious Mental Processes. 

In connexion with the consideration of such nervous actions 
as appear to us to have no conscious accompaniment we may 
still ask, whether they have indeed no connexion with our 
subjective experience ? Or is there such a thing as unconscious 
mental life? Are mind and consciousness commensurate 
terms ? Or are we, in mind, to take account of more than 
consciousness ? This question has of. late times been raised 
from the physiological point of view ; but it was suggested 
long ago, before the study of physiology had reached its 
present pitch of development. Nearly two centuries ago 

1 Phrenology was built up on the assumption of the relatively 
independent action of different parts of the cerebral hemispheres. 
Gall's theory was based on an imperfect knowledge of the brain. It 
is possible that what is now called cerebral localisation may lead to 
a scientific phrenology, but as yet the data are insufficient to prove 
much. Cf. Mind, vol. ii, p. 92, on Ferrier's Functions of the Brain. 



vil] Elements of Psychology. 43 

Leibniz raised the question from a purely subjective point 
of view, and found the hypothesis of unconscious mental 
experience to be necessary in order to explain our conscious 
experience. 

A certain nerve-process has only to be complex enough 
for consciousness to arise. Now suppose it is a little less 
complex : is there then nothing at all corresponding to con- 
sciousness ? The difference between a reflex act and a 
simple conscious act is only one of degree of complexity: 
is there then nothing comparable with consciousness con- 
nected with the reflex act? Let us picture by a diagram 
a view of the relation between mental experience and brain 
process : — 



Physical 



occurrence > "T "i ' 

(nerve process) ' D A C B 

(connexion (connexion (connexion 



inferential) certain) inferential) 



Psychical 
occurrence 



} 



_1_ 



(mental process) ' D A C B 

At a certain stage in these two lines A — C, there is signified 
a concurrence of the two processes of which there can be no 
doubt, e. g. when I open my eyes, I have visual sensations of 
this room. If I close them, I get none. We also know 
there is a great deal of mental experience of which we are 
certain, but which on the corresponding physical side is broken, 
because we do not know what particular correspondence there 
is (C — B). We say there is correspondence by inference, by 
analogy only. So also we find a whole range of nervous pro- 
cess which has no mental accompaniment, all e.g. that goes 
on below the brain in so far as it is reflex. Now is there 
not after all, in relation with such nerve-processes, (D — A) 
below the brain (according to the principle of continuity) 



44 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

some corresponding procedure of unconscious mental experi- 
ence ? Be not misled by the seemingly sharp contradiction 
between conscious and unconscious experience. The fact 
is that there are all degrees of consciousness, from the fully 
conscious down to the sub-conscious. Hence it becomes 
a grave question, where does the sub-conscious stop ? 

Concomitance or Parallelism. 

You will find in Prof. Ho riding s chapter on ' Mind and 
Body ' reference to various views as to the relation of mind 
and body, but at the beginning of our course such considera- 
tions are premature. What we need now do is to express 
the fact that mind and nervous processes are related. The 
best term for this is Concomitance. There is reason to 
believe that whenever we have anything of mental experience, 
there is a fact of nerve-process concomitant with it. Why 
there should be such concomitance we cannot now consider. 
The word Parallelism is used synonymously with concomit- 
ance, but it carries us too far if it suggests that when there is 
a nerve-process there is a fact of mental experience \ The 
parallelism does not hold both ways. And neither term 
conveys the implication of any causal relation, least of all that 
the nerve-process is the cause of the mental experience, 
which is the Materialist standpoint. The psychical process 
is not in the least accounted for or explained by the physical 
process. Mark me here — I protest against such careless 
phrases as ' brain thinks/ It is stark nonsense ! As a material 
organ, it is the seat of a process expressible in terms of 
motion. Because we are thinking, cerebral processes are 
going on. The brain does not think : it moves. Again, we 

1 Strictly, we can only speak of a parallel between two physical 
events, not between a physical and a psychical event. 



vil] Elements of Psychology. 45 

must specially guard against such a blunder as lies in saying 
that sensation travels along a nerve or is located in the 
brain. Sensation is a fact of our conscious experience, 
a fact of Mind, arising on occasion of the brain being excited 
in a certain way, but not to be located in the brain any more 
than in any other part of the organism. In the nervous 
system, which consists only of matter, any change is in- 
telligible to us ultimately only as some kind of motion. It 
may not be visible ; it may, that is to say, be molecular, but 
still it is only motion. We are familiar with the fact that all 
changes of bodies or media are ultimately reducible to modes 
of motion, as e. g. sound, light, heat ; and again in chemistry, 
where a chemical reaction is only a rearrangement of atoms 
in space, i.e. motion. The nervous system is a physical 
thing, and, just as we consider that a flash of electricity 
passing through a telegraph-wire sets up a molecular motion 
within the wire, so this is all that we can suppose to take 
place in the nervous system when a sensation is produced. 
When, for instance, I prick my hand, a disturbance has passed 
into the brain, and then I become conscious, and then goes 
out that kind of motor change which causes me to draw 
back my hand. Molecular change, which is ultimately 
motion, goes in, and only motion comes out, but sensation 
does not go in ; it is only bound up with the motion when 
consciousness is aroused. Nor does volition come out ; it is 
bound up with the outgoing motor disturbance. Sensation, 
consciousness, cannot be said to be anywhere in the same 
sense that a disturbance can be said to be in, or travel in, 
a nerve. There is merely a case of thoroughgoing concomit- 
ance, concurrence or parallelism— let us say, a concomitance 
of disparate processes. We can never make a physical 
disturbance pass into a psychical disturbance. This implies 



46 Elements of Psychology. 

the important fact that there is no accounting for mind in 
terms of matter, though we may explain matter in terms of 
mind. But this is metaphysical ground. 



Note. — For further discussion on Subconscious Mental Processes see 
Appendix. — Ed. 

For Lecture VIII read Bain, Bk. I, ch. i, § 4 ; Hoffding, V, A. 



LECTURE VIII. 

GROWTH OF MIND. THE STAGE OF SENSE. 
Correlated Procedure. 

So far for a general view of mind, together with a brief 
survey of the nervous system as specially related to mind. 
We have seen that the nervous system is one liable to be 
impressed, or acted upon, physically, and also able to send out 
impulse, to act. It has its passive side, on which it is receptive, 
and its active side, on which it is effective. It has, thirdly, its 
central parts, through which the two sides, affection and 
reaction, are held in relation with one another. Now in as 
far as the system is simply affected or excited (whether from 
without or otherwise) we have the physical condition cor- 
responding to what we are subjectively conscious of as 
Feeling. In as far as the system is effective, we have the 
physical condition corresponding to what we are subjectively 
conscious of as Willing or Conation. And in as far as the 
system is at once affective and effective — reaction in full and 
activity co-ordinalive of the variety of impressions to which 
it is subjected — we have the physical condition corresponding 
to what we are subjectively conscious of as Knowing or 
Intellection. This process of grouping or co-ordinating 
among centres prior to energy sent out is one of fabulous 
complexity. All conscious processes, however, even the very 



48 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

simplest feeling, coincide with a complex nerve-process. 
And for that matter any psychosis whatever is essentially 
complex, in itself and in its concomitant neurosis. 

Stages of Mental Life, 

Reverting to our original subjective point of view, which 
for us is primary and fundamental, we ask what kind of 
mental experience are we first specially to study ? 

We have this great phantasmagoria of mental experiences, 
which we have tried to express in a variety of ways more or 
less figurative, and our business is to see whether we can 
class those mental experiences that are like each other and 
marked off from others, and if there is a thread of law running 
through them all. The business of science is a mustering, 
classification, comparison of facts for finding out the laws 
involved in them. 

Development and Growth of Mind, 

Now in seeking a scientific procedure for our psychology 
we find ourselves at this stage in a position to consider mind 
in an aspect that is of the first importance as regards both 
science and practice. The mental life proceeds in a uniform 
relation with the life of the bodily organism, more especially 
with the nervous system ; and as the life of the body may be 
expressed by saying that it develops and grows, it is inevitably 
suggested that there must be a corresponding development 
and growth of mind. Now whenever it can be said of any- 
thing that it develops and grows, there is no more effective 
way of studying its nature than by tracing the successive 
stages of its life ; while it is only thus that there can be any 
thought of intelligent practical training. 

Though they have a direct application to the mental life 



viii.] Elements of Psychology. 49 

of which we are subjectively conscious, the notions of 
Development and Growth may at first be more easily grasped 
in reference to living bodies. Development in this case is to 
be understood as the gradual unfolding of the distinguishable 
but interconnected parts called organs out of an appearance 
of uniformity, and Growth as a progressive modification, 
through activity, of those organic parts as they become 
developed. The seed, for example, develops into the plant 
with all its varied parts, and growth accompanies the develop- 
ment at every stage. Both processes go on in relation to 
the circumstances in which the living thing finds itself, and are 
liable, as these are modified, to be promoted or arrested. 
But while an organism cannot develop except in circum- 
stances in which it can live and grow, its development 
depends less on circumstances than on its original nature 
and constitution. In like circumstances (natural or artificial) 
different germs will develop differently; and even the growth 
of whatever is developed will always be limited by the original 
possibilities of development, both as to kind and amount, 
inherent in the living thing. 

Turning now to the subjective point of view, we may speak, 
in no indefinite sense, of mind as developing and growing. 
Our conscious experience, when we reflect upon it — and we 
have already so reflected 1 — has a distinct appearance of con- 
tinuity while becoming ever fuller and more varied. It has 
grown in the sense that it has steadily increased in extent 
and content, and it has developed by the opening up, from 
time to time, of new mental horizons. The circumstances 
also of this development and growth admit of more or less 
consistent and definite statement. We can distinguish a part 
that is due to personal initiative from the experience that 

1 Vide Lecture III. 



50 Elements of Psychology. [Lkct. 

seems rather as if it came to us ; and in this again a part 
that comes, as it were incidentally (through contact, as we 
say, with the world of nature), from that which has been 
communicated (by parents, teachers, and others, in the social 
state into which we are born). Further, we can allow for an 
original mental constitution by supposing that each man's 
conscious experience from the first has its own peculiar range 
and complexion. My earliest feelings, impulses, &c, will, in 
like circumstances, be other than yours. While we are 
fitted, as human beings, to develop a common consciousness 
not shared by the lower animals, we differ at the same time 
as to what we may each of us mentally become. 

It is thus quite possible to speak of mental development 
and growth from the strictly psychological point of view; 
but the view is rendered much more definite when there is 
coupled with it a reference to the bodily conditions of mental 
life. In particular, we are thereby helped to conceive of the 
individual as endowed originally with definite mental capacities; 
for each of us comes into the world with a nervous system so 
organised that the influence of circumstances is at once seen 
to have its limits. Organised, however, as the nervous system 
is at birth, it is then but imperfectly developed, responding 
with a small number of re-actions to a few simple impressions, 
or expending its energy in random movements ; and so we 
can the better understand how contracted and inchoate must 
have been our earliest mental experience, which was there 
before we became self-conscious, and which, when we became 
self-conscious, could no longer be recalled. As the develop- 
ment of the system is then known to proceed, through 
childhood and youth, in dependence upon its inherent powers 
more than upon (though not without) the presence of soliciting 
circumstances, we may more distinctly comprehend how new 



viil] Elements of Psychology. 51 

phases of mental life should from time to time manifest 
themselves, for which no explanation is to be sought in the 
foregoing conscious experience. While, again, the growth 
of the nervous system as a whole, and of its various parts, at 
each stage of development, evidently proceeds in relation to 
the physical circumstances naturally present or artificially 
supplied, so may we more clearly see how the mind will 
expand and acquire this disposition or that according to the 
nature of the incidental experience or express instruction it 
receives. 

Even so, however, though rendered more distinctly in- 
telligible, the development (as distinguished from the growth) 
of mind does not admit of being traced in detail. For this 
there is required a far more exact knowledge than we yet 
have of the actual development of the nervous system as 
well as of the relation of its different parts to the variety of 
mental functions. We can but judge generally that, as 
mental advance is bound up with the nervous system in the 
living human body, it follows a course that may be variously 
modified and specially may be arrested, but cannot be in- 
definitely hastened or prolonged. Such a general conviction 
is of great practical value, warranting, as it does in education, 
the most particular regard to all the ascertained conditions 
of bodily well-being. No mental regimen can be truly 
effective that involves the least neglect of the conditions 
under which there can be a healthy natural development of 
the nervous system in the body. But even in the practical 
view, the condition has chiefly a negative import, and precise 
positive injunctions are not to be looked for till the actual 
process of development can be specifically traced. 

The case of growth is different. Growth of mind, at 
every stage of development, is represented by the word 

E 2 



52 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

Experience, or rather, what we call Experience subjectively 
is growth physically. The more frequently any feeling is 
experienced, or any intellectual combination is formed, the 
more liable is that feeling to be experienced, the more fixed 
that combination becomes. Physically, in the one case, the seat 
has become more highly charged with nervous energy, and 
in the other case some definite cross-connexion has been 
carved out. And it is not impossible to express the con- 
ditions under which mental experience becomes widened and 
fixed, in relation with what is known of the conditions of 
growth in the living organism. At present, however, our 
insight into mind as growing or developed is to be used for 
laying out the field of inquiry in such fashion that explanation 
may afterwards become possible. 

Now there is a very simple and obvious way of viewing 
mind as manifested at stages, which seems the most effective 
for this purpose. We know that our consciousness is some- 
thing that grows, develops, or expands. We are aware of 
this for ourselves ; we know that our consciousness expands 
as ive grow and learn. And though we do not remember 
our earliest years, we can understand what went on in us 
by reason of what we suppose goes on in infants. Adult 
consciousness is more manifold and complex than infant 
consciousness. If our consciousness has grown and is 
growing, we must suppose it has been doing so according to 
some definite laws. We are bound to suppose that, if we 
mean to have any science of it. It might seem as though 
nothing were so free as mental experience. Then where are 
the laws involved in it ? If we are to know anything definite 
about it, we must seek for laws, and before we seek, we have 
in a definite way to muster our experiences, classify them, 
put together those experiences that resemble one another 



viil] Elements of Psychology. 53 

Reasons for commencing Mental Analysis with Sense. 

Now my answer as to my procedure is based on my 
opening remarks. We are to begin with the consideration 
of that kind of mental experience called Sense, or Sensation. 
From several points of view, sense comes before us with 
special claims to be first considered. Not all psychologists 
who begin in the same way make this justification of their 
procedure. 

1. 'Look within' and you will admit, that, whatever else 
we can say of consciousness, we are always having a series 
of fresh and new feelings or affections ; it is the most salient 
fact ; our conscious experience is continually being added to 
in some way. How, for instance, would my class know my 
thoughts during a lecture without the sounds of my voice, or 
the sight of what is on the blackboard ? And the one term 
herefor is our being sensible of somewhat. Our consciousness 
may not be aggrandised by bare sense-experience, but the 
sense-experience must be there. 

2. At the dawn of memory, we see by our own experience 
and the conscious experience of children, that our conscious- 
ness was then predominantly a sense-consciousness. In all 
its three distinguishable (though blended) phases of Feeling, 
Intellect, and Will, we may note an earlier and a later stage. 
Some feelings are clearly manifested before others, and the 
like is true of cognitions and volitions. The feelings that 
are called sense-feelings or, simply, sensations (taste, touch, 
&c), are almost without exception excitable in some form 
from the beginning of life, while those more specially de- 
nominated Emotions or Sentiments (love, sympathy, &c.) for 
the most part become manifest only later on. The knowledge 
of sensible things, distinguished as sense-perception or, 



54 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

simply, perception, is obtained at a time when general 
knowledge, called Conception or Thinking, remains still in 
abeyance. And, in like manner, the power of willing is 
first manifested in control of the bodily members, which may 
be called sense-action. In short, Sense may be used as 
a comprehensive designation to cover all the primary mani- 
festations of mental life. 

3. Conscious experience then first offers itself for study in 
the mode of sense. Take any consciousness of developed 
form, e.g. consciousness of the pillar in my class-room. See 
what it involves ; analyse it, break it up, and you will see that, 
whatever goes to make up that consciousness, the salient 
facts are what we call sense — sense of colour, of hardness, of 
sound when it is struck, and so on. Whatever else the pillar 
may be, it is an aggregate of sense-experiences, resembling 
each other in several respects, yet each of them for us a simple, 
distinguishable experience — simple, as not to be further 
analysed. Sense-experiences in their ultimate form are con- 
stituents of consciousness. 

4. Now, to show the importance of physiological con- 
siderations, refer to those conditions in the nervous system on 
which our sense-experience depends. The system consists 
of members, the brain, &c, which are removed from direct 
communication with other material objects. Communication 
takes place by way of nerves. And if the brain is, properly 
speaking, liable to be acted upon and to act, only by nerves, 
then, if there is one kind of mental experience that is bound 
up with nerves, it is this kind that should occur to us to 
study — that experience, in other words, which involves both 
nerves and centres. We best oppose to the central parts of 
the nervous system its peripheral parts, or, more especially, 
the limited external surface which constitutes, not all the 



viii.] Elements of Psychology. 55 

peripheral parts of the nervous system, but the periphery of 
the body. Let us then define sense from a physiological 
point of view, though it be a mental fact. Sense is the name 
for a certain simple kind of subjective experience, which 
arises for us when brain is called into play in connexion with 
the peripheral parts of the nervous system. Brain may be 
called otherwise into play, as e.g. when I in thought estimate 
that 12x13=156, but whenever we have got a sense- 
experience along with excitation of brain, there is also 
a process going on in the peripheral parts of the nervous 
system. And this is our definition from the physiological 
point of view. 

But we saw that those peripheral parts were twofold, 
afferent and efferent. In our analysis of sense have we to take 
account at once of both ? Professor Bain begins with that 
simple kind of conscious experience which, he believes, arises 
with the efferent nerves, and only in the second place goes 
on to deal with that kind of conscious experience which 
arises in connexion with afferent nerves, i. e. with sensation. 
Whether sensation should also include the former kind is 
a moot point. That sense is connected with stimulus of the 
brain through afferent nerve-fibres, is the extent to which 
psychologists in this matter agree. 

Sense as related to the Three Phases of Mind. 

What is the relation of sensation to the three ultimate 
phases of mind? Professor Hoffding has no hesitation in 
bringing sensation under Cognition. Later on he gives 
grounds for modifying this view, for when he proceeds to 
Feeling and Will he is as ready to take account of sensation 
as he was in Cognition ; he does not bring in sensation defi- 
nitely, yet he makes express reference to it. Sensation then 



56 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

has not that exclusive reference to cognition which his expo- 
sition to start with would seem to imply. Professor Bain, 
on the other hand, devotes a preliminary section (Book I) to 
Sensation before dealing with the three phases, and implies 
that sense has a relation to all three. I agree with Professor 
Bain and go further. He professes to deal with Sense before 
he comes to Intellection, &c., yet in point of fact, at various 
parts of Book I (pp. 47-50 ; 62-66), he is already, in con- 
nexion with Sense, dealing to a certain extent with Intellection. 
So for Feeling and Conation. We must be more explicit. 

Have we under the name of Sense got a fourth phase of 
mind ? Not another phase, but a stage of mental experience. 
I mean, that every phase of mind can be observed by us 
at the stage of sense. Intellection, e. g., can be either sense- 
intellection or not. We have, at the stage of sense, to take 
account of mental experience as it partakes of all three 
phases. We can view it in respect of sense-feeling, sense- 
intellection, sense-conation. This view is not really at 
variance with those of Professors Hoffding and Bain. 

Children's minds are at work at the sense-stage. This does 
not mean that sensation by itself gives a complete account 
of the child's mind. However early we take account of 
consciousness, we are bound to suppose that in the mind 
of children we can discern the three phases. If children were 
not intellective, affected, conative at the beginning, they 
would never become so; but while they are all this, they 
are so pre-eminently on occasion of sense. There comes 
a time when consciousness is not pre-eminently sense-con- 
sciousness, when we pass more and more out of the stage of 
sense. Care must be taken in using the word ' stage/ or it 
rnay be perilous, because it suggests that when we pass from the 
sense-stage we have done with it. But it lasts as long as life. 



viil] Elements of Psychology. 57 

There are cases of disease where human beings have lost 
exclusively all sense-experience ; at least one such case is 
recorded, where not only taste, hearing, &c, but even touch 
was gone. Such a person could hardly be conscious at all. 
The same happens to us every night when we sleep ; when- 
ever sensation is cut off, asleep we go. This justifies us in 
saying that, no matter how aggrandised our consciousness, if we 
do not continue having sensations, our mass of consciousness 
is of no use. But, relatively to other modes of consciousness, 
it is so much more prominent and engrossing at the beginning 
of life, that we may with good reason speak of it as the initial 
stage of mind ; and there is no more effective way of stating 
the problem of psychology than in this form : that we have to 
seek for an explanation of the phenomena of adult conscious- 
ness as arising out of the sense-experience of early life. 



For Lecture IX read Bain, pp. 27-35; Hoffding, VI, A, § 1, a. 



LECTURE IX. 

GENERAL SENSE. SPECIFIC ENERGY OF NERVE. 

Sense, for Psychology, is Simple and Ultimate. 

We found that to get a definition of Sense, or Sensation, 
we were compelled to connect it with, and refer it to, nervous 
processes. It either seems not to be, or is not, resolvable 
into anything simpler. And as this is not the case with 
every kind of conscious experience, we have some reason 
for beginning our analysis of subjective experience with 
Sense. Again, consciousness is broken into in a way for 
which the previous phase does not furnish us with any 
adequate reason. Thus we can say in a manner our con- 
scious life begins with sense. 

My Procedure. 

Some psychologists, e.g. Professors Sully and Clark Murray, 
before proceeding to give a detailed exposition of Sense, 
have a number of considerations on the General Doctrine 
of Sensibility ; and both proceed to consider how our con- 
sciousness is quantitatively related to the physiological 
circumstances which attend it. We however shall first map 
out what are the main kinds of sensation, and then consider 
what are the ultimate relations between sensation and 
stimulus as treated in what is called Psycho-physics. 



Elements of Psychology. 59 

The Seats of Sensation, 
When we deal with sensation there is a conviction that 
we have a certain number of senses. We talk popularly 
about five kinds of sensation, corresponding to the five organs 
of sense — skin, tongue, nose, ear, and eye. We distinguish 
sensations from the organic point of view ; we connect them 
with manifest organic parts. By organ of sense we mean 
something ' through ' which we have a certain kind of sense- 
experience. But remember always that sense arises neither 
in fibre nor in brain, but ' in ' consciousness. Let students 
correct for themselves gross errors herein in some of the 
books (not those I have named for reading). 

Quality and Quantity of Sensation, 
From the subjective point of view how do we distinguish 
and connect sensations ? We are aware they have something 
in common, yet something peculiar to each, constituting 
different kinds of sensation. For ' kind ' use quality of 
sensation ; sound and colour differ qualitatively. Sounds, &c, 
differ also in quantity, i.e. in intensity, but the fundamental 
distinction is that of quality, both as between different senses 
and within the same sense. There is e. g. a difference between 
sweet tastes and bitter, and again between kinds of sweet and 
kinds of bitter. 

Special Order of Sensations. 

Assuming for the moment the adequacy of the popular 
fivefold distinction of sense, we find that these five can 
be disposed in a certain order. Let us substitute for Touch 
the more comprehensive term, Skin-sensibility, and range 
them thus : — 

Skin-sensibility. 

Taste and Smell 
Hearing and Sight. 



60 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

According to what is this order? According to the principle 
followed in our order of objective sciences, an order of 
increasing speciality. The quality, if we read downwards, 
becomes of a more marked, pronounced kind. There is 
in sound and colour something more specially distinctive 
than in most skin-sensibility, in which there is a certain 
vagueness. Consciousness yields us a greater variety of 
tastes and smells than of skin-sensations, and a still greater 
of sounds and colours. 

Again, if we refer to the corresponding organs we find 
a corresponding increase of speciality. Eye and ear are 
the most highly specialised organs of sense. The skin con- 
stitutes a relatively unspecialised organ. Democritus had 
a theory of development of the senses, which was that skin- 
sensibility was the first and fundamental sense, and of it 
all the others were specialised kinds. This brilliant suggestion 
has received a great deal of support from modern biology, 
but cannot be said to be established. That taste and smell 
are modifications of skin-sensibility is possible, but eye and 
ear are not merely such. Nevertheless we can say this 
much, that our order exhibits increasing speciality in three 
ways — subjectively, organically, biologically. 

General, Organic, or Systemic Sensibility. 

Our order then, if read upwards, indicates decreasing 
speciality, i.e. increasing generality. What is that general 
sensibility which gives meaning to the criteria of speciality ? 
It must be such that those criteria are wanting. On the 
physical side, the general characteristics are that the nerves 
involved in it are nerves not provided with specially con- 
structed endings. In the flesh, the skin, the internal organs 
of the body, there is a large supply of afferent nerves, 



IX.] Elements of Psychology. 61 

connected with the main centres, but ending simply in those 
organs. Sensations that we have in connexion with those 
organs are not clearly distinguishable one from another 
with the definiteness characterising special sensibility. We 
may do our best to classify this large mass of general 
sensibility, as Professor Bain e. g. has done, but we must say, 
that in psychological character it is essentially vague. It was 
not till the end of the last century, about 1796, that, 
through Cabanis, what is now called general sensibility came 
to be distinctly analysed. Odier designations for it are 
(a) Organic Sensibility (cf. Bain), all parts of the organism 
subservient to life being, as such, organs or seats of general 
sensibility. (b) Common Sensibility, used also in physiology. 
(Note here that sensus communis is an old term and ambiguous : 
common sense in philosophy has acquired another and a de- 
finite meaning of its own, adopted by the school of ' common- 
sense philosophers/ headed by Reid.) (c) Sensus Vilalis. 
(d) Systemic Sensibility, or sensibility connected with the life 
of the body as a system. Neither ' organic ' nor ' systemic ' 
offers so good and direct an antithesis to ' special ' as ' com- 
mon/ or ' general/ Nor does the word c special ' commit us 
to the popular but incorrect number of five senses. 

Distinction between General and Special Sense. 

Now the difference between general and special sense 
cannot be shown subjectively in a definite way ; it can onlj 
be done by a reference to physiological accompaniments. 
And this follows from the conclusion we came to above, that 
sense itself as a whole has the physiological conditions ver* 
evident, and therefore cannot te adequately explained withoui 
a reference to these phenomena. 

The peculiarity of special sense is that it has a certain 



62 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

definitely marked quality, and is so divided off in conscious- 
ness that there is no danger of confusing it with any other 
sense whether general or special. It is true that it is very 
common to apply the language of one sense to another, 
e. g. * loud colour/ &c., and furthermore, I will not say 
that confusion never takes place between two senses, as 
in taste and smell, where some sensations are difficult 
to distinguish, as will be noted later on 1 . But whereas 
w r e may say with relative determinateness that special sensa- 
tions have a well-defined qualitative character, it is almost 
impossible to explain the differences in general sensations in 
the same way. It is true, in turn, that among them there 
are marked peculiarities, as e. g. between a racking pain and 
suffocation, but the difference is not like those between the 
special senses. 

Now this is as far as we can go by a subjective treatment 
of the subject, and so we must fall back on physiological 
characteristics, as we have already had to do in the case 
of general sense. In the case of all the nerves of special 
sense, the afferent nerve-fibres end more or less at the 
periphery, not simply as fibres, but in certain minute structures 
which vary in the case of the different senses, and which help us 
to define the differences we experience subjectively. These 
other structures make the irritability greater than it otherwise 
would be. They are called by Mr. Spencer multipliers of 
disturbance, and may be compared to a thorn which, when 
run into the skin, increases the irritability of the nerves 
around it. Among them are the papillae, or peripheral 
organs of touch, the retina, and the peculiar endings in the 
tongue, where the nerves end in a different manner at the tip 
from those at the back. In the general senses these nerve- 
1 Cf. Lecture X, p. 70. 



IX.] Elements of Psychology. 63 

endings are usually absent, and we shall see that the more 
highly organised or specialised is the structure of these 
endings, the greater is the speciality of the special sense. 

Specific Energy of Nerve. 

To whatever it may be due, whether to peculiarity of 
nerve-endings or peculiarity of cerebral endings, we find 
that a particular nerve is normally or regularly responsive 
to a particular kind of stimulus, but yet is found to respond 
to other kinds of stimulus in such a uniform way that the 
quality of the consciousness is always of the same kind. 
This is called the doctrine of the specific energy of nerve. 
For instance, light is produced by the vibration of the ether 
acting upon the optic nerve through the retina, and if this 
kind of stimulus be applied to any other but the optic nerve 
no effect is produced. In the same way there is one nerve 
which responds to waves of sound. But if you treat the optic 
nerve with a stimulus of pressure or electricity, consciousness 
of light is produced ; so, too, will the auditory nerve respond 
in its normal way when pressed upon. Taste in particular 
states of health is also affected analogously, and so is the 
olfact©ry nerve, a bad odour, e. g., being smelt just before 
a fit of epilepsy. Specific energy of nerve has been variously 
explained, but not satisfactorily ; let it suffice us here, however, 
that the doctrine is of real account in psychology in fixing 
the distinction of one special sense from another. 

There are, nevertheless, two partial exceptions to the rule, 
viz., (1) we find a case where the same stimulus acting 
on two different kinds of nerves produces different conscious 
experience, and (2) there is a case where one and the same 
nerve is differently affected by different stimuli. 

(1) The same waves of ether acting on the retina produce 



64 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

colour, on the skin, temperature. This shows that light 
and heat do not reside in the stimulus, but are differentiated 
by our specific nerve-endings. Nothing shows more clearly 
the efficiency of the nerve-structures in both cases. The 
range of stimulus common to the two senses is limited. 
If the wave-frequency is reduced we still have a sensation 
of heat, but none of light. If the wave-frequency is increased, 
colour is still produced while heat dies away, as in the case of 
the violet rays. 

(2) The tip of the tongue is supplied by the nervus 
trigeminus ; at the tip we have the senses of both taste 
and touch developed, the latter to its highest pitch. Though 
both these senses are supplied by the same nerve, there 
is reason to believe that the fibres have in each case different 
endings. When these two kinds of endings are stimulated 
together there arises a confusion, such e. g. as the effect that 
a substance like mustard produces (cf. Bain, p. 38). 

General Sensibility concluded. 

Let us now dispose of general sensibility. It constitutes 
the beginning of sensibility in this sense, that if all the special 
senses are developed from skin-sensibility, and skin-sensibility 
is developed from general sensibility, then the last is fun- 
damental to all the rest. Cabanis, again, maintained (cf. 
Hoffding) that in all probability we have it before birth, prior 
to the exercise of the organs of relation, as those of special 
sensibility are sometimes called in view of our entering 
through them into external relations. The fact that we have 
no memory of this pre-natal sensibility proves nothing. 
There is every reason to believe that organic sensibility plays 
its part in the development of the individual from the 
beginning, and it is certainly fundamental. 



ix.] Elements of Psychology. 65 

Its character in adolescent or adult consciousness is 
chiefly that of feeling in its proper sense, of affection either 
pleasurable or painful, and especially of the latter. Many 
modes of organic sensations are unknown to us save as 
sources of pain. When our vital mechanism is working 
rightly, we know nothing of it in detail, but on occasion 
of disorder, e. g. of the liver, we get sensations of the most 
depressing kind. Certain other modes, however, of general 
sensibility are pleasurable, e.g. a sense of warmth, or 
moderate repletion. All that we sum up in the terms, physical 
comfort or discomfort, sense of ill- or well-being, bien-etre, 
malaise, ccenaesthesis, is to the greatest extent organic or 
general sensibility. Even though particular modes of it 
may not figure in consciousness as pleasurable, it does 
not follow that they do not tell on consciousness. Once 
more, our general sense of being is a collective sensible 
experience, made up of all our feeling at any given moment, 
containing some elements of special sense, but into which 
organic sense generally enters. 

We have further good grounds for stating, that into our 
consciousness of self as of an individual, of myself, of being 
myself, organic sensibility enters as the fundamental factor 
and nucleus, round which is gradually developed the ego, as 
distinguished from the non-ego. Herein organic sensations 
attain to great psychological importance, however unfitted 
they may be, from the fact that they are non-localisable, to 
become sources of the knowledge of objects. 

Finally, in respect of Conation organic sensibility has a 
marked character. Every mode of experience which is 
markedly pleasurable or painful has a great conational im- 
portance, even though it may not take the form of overt action. 
Some of the most fundamental active impulses of our nature 

F 



66 Elements of Psychology. 

have their root in organic sensibility ; e. g. there is no under- 
standing appetite without reference to it. 

We now leave the l stage ' of organic sense after having 
considered from it all the three phases. Describable mainly 
in terms of Feeling, it has small intellectual importance, but 
contributes by collective action some knowledge of the ' inner ' 
or subjective world, and, by particular action only, clues to 
states of the organism as such. And it is of great conational 
importance. 



For Lecture X read Bain, Book I, ch. ii, from p. 36. 



LECTURE X. 

THE SPECIAL SENSES. 

In resorting to the special senses, we find this marked 
contrast to general sensibility, that distinctiveness is the very 
note, discrimination the very essence, of them. And we have 
already seen (though it is much overlooked) that the speciality 
of the special senses is not properly understood till it is 
grasped that they are not equally special. 

Skin Sensibility. 

Notice now the double relation of skin sensibility, arising 
from its complex character. It is the bridge between 
general, and the other forms of special sensibility. The 
following diagram will indicate its position : — 

( Organic Sensibility 
( Skin Sensibility i 

Taste and Smell > Special 

Hearing and Sight ' 

Why do I speak of skin sensibili y at all ? In order to get 
away from the special limitations of the word ' touch/ Why 
does Professor Bain put touch before taste ? Because he looks 
moref'to intellection. But our point of view is to find out what 
sense is as sense. Why skin sensibility rather than touch ? 
If Professor Bain be read on Touch, it will be seen that he 

F 2 



68 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

considers not only touch proper, which he describes as 
contact and pressure, but also temperature, the sense of 
which is connected, in ways both general and special, with 
the skin. Hence it is well to use the wider and more com- 
prehensive term, skin sensibility. The question then arises, 
whether touch and temperature are merely different qualities 
of the same sense, or not ? No, we can, it is true, get them both 
together, as when I put my finger on the table, getting both 
contact and temperature, but they are independent variables. 
The fact that there are skin sensations which, as touch or 
temperature, become in certain circumstances pain, does not 
prove them one and the same special sense, but connects them 
with general sensations. We do not begin to feel pain of 
touch or temperature, until the skin becomes injured or dis- 
integrated. And that is the very thing which arises in organic 
sensibility. Skin pain is indeed the commonest, the most 
typical of all pains, the one we are most exposed to. Pricks, 
cuts, the greater part of the pain in operations — in all such 
we suffer skin pain, on occasion of injury to the organism. 
Hence in our skins we are still in the region of organic 
sensibility \ and any sensation of temperature in the skin can 
always be regarded as a specialised mode of the general 
sensation of heat. 

Some 2 declare that pain is, in addition to touch and 
temperature, a third form of sensibility. It is true, on the 
one hand, that in certain cases of disease persons, while 

1 Skin sensibility appears to be more vitally connected with organic 
functioning than any other special sense, not excepting taste and 
smell (V, p. 70). Any of the special senses may be lost without 
involving death, except skin sensibility. Patients who have lost this 
sense go to sleep inevitably and die shortly. 

2 E. g. Mr. Spencer. 



x.] Elements of Psychology. 69 

retaining a sense of touch, lose the capacity of feeling pain 
through pricks. On the ofher hand, touch and temperature 
pass by insensible degrees into pain, when the excitation has 
reached a certain pitch, so that pain seems due to degree or 
mode of excitation of the same nerve-fibres. Again, we have 
not the same proof that there are different fibres for pain and 
touch, as we have that there are different fibres for temperature 
and touch. In these there is every reason to believe that each 
kind of sensation is connected with different nerve-endings 
and different fibres of the same nerve. At parts of the skin 
we have touch and temperature, at others temperature and 
not touch. Investigations even seem to show that on a 
minute scale there are heat-spots and cold-spots on the skin, 
where we feel only heat and only cold respectively \ Hence 
skin sensibility is a complex, a nest, or matrix of sensations, nor 
perhaps has research yet exhausted its specialisations. And 
each mode of it is both general and special. How far special ? 
In so far as contact, shifted the fraction of a millimetre on the 
skin, may indicate a change in feeling from heat to cold or 
to sense of touch only. The sensations of touch proper 
are highly discriminable, of considerable qualitative variety, 
indefinitely numerous. As to the physiological conditions, 
the nerve-endings of touch vary greatly at different parts of 
the body, the full import whereof will be evident later. 
They are, to take extremes, very different at the tips of the 
fingers and tongue from those in the interscapular region 
of the skin. That such differences exist and are parallel 
with subjective differences is characteristic of special sense. 
Touch, therefore, and temperature, though nearly related 
to general sensibility, are essentially special as well, and 
constitute, as we have said, a bridge between the two. 

1 Cf. Donaldson, * On the Temperature Sense,' Mind, July, 1885. 



70 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

Taste and Smell. 

These should be studied in Bain. There is a reason for 
considering them together. They are related by a marked 
affinity, statements about the one mostly holding good for 
the other. Both are special, manifesting qualitative differ- 
ences and by way of special peripheral organs. Each is in 
relation with a mode of organic sensibility, viz., alimentation 
and respiration, respectively, to the organs of which taste 
and smell are as door-keepers. Thus each is complex. 
Relishes, e. g., and disgusts or nauseous tastes, as distinct from 
simple tastes, include organic sensibility of the alimentary 
canal. ' Fresh air and 'closeness/ as distinct from simple 
odours, involve organic sensibility of the respiratory organs. 
Again, burning and bitter tastes and pungent smells involve 
skin stimuli and other nerves, besides those of the organs 
of taste and smell. Between these two organs there is 
physical continuity, namely, at the back of the mouth. 
Corresponding to this we find in subjective experience 
that tastes and smells are often mixed up together, run into 
each other, e. g. savours and flavours. Again, they have 
both been called the chemical senses, because in both cases 
the stimulus takes the form of a chemical process. Tasted 
things must be liquid or moist, smelt things must be gaseous \ 

Both organs are in continuity with the skin ; indeed, if 
the term, skin, be extended so as to include all the mucous 
membrane in mouth and nostrils, then there is a sense in 
which taste and smell may both be regarded as specialised 
skin-sensations, as touch of a certain kind, both mentally 

1 When we speak of 'savour' we seem to be talking of smell, but 
are really speaking of taste ; when we talk of l flavour ' we seem to 
be speaking of taste, but are really speaking of smell. Cf. the fact 
that flavour is lost when we are suffering from catarrh. 



x.] Elements of Psychology. 71 

and physiologically. The tongue, e. g., which is the organ 
of taste, is also the most highly differentiated part of the 
organ of touch. At the tip, the same nerve both touches 
and tastes, but by different filaments, ending differently. 
Again, the tongue is also an organ of temperature, a pungent 
taste involving stimulation of temperature-nerves as well as 
of gustatory nerves. The same holds good of the nostrils. 
Taking snuff affects both olfactory and tactile nerves. 

Coming to the residuum of tastes proper and smells proper, 
we find that many are markedly pleasurable or painful. 
For many, on the other hand, a neutral character is claimed. 
There is also a vast range of qualitative variety. In the 
difference between an alkaline and a saline taste you are 
discriminatively affected, rather than pleasurably or painfully 
affected. Now, under the circumstances, where the difference 
between these tastes is the most marked fact, are they not 
describable in terms of feeling ? Yes, because we are affected, 
i. e. feeling. Whereas, I say, the salient feature of ( sweet ' and 
1 bitter ' is their character of feeling, the salient feature of 
other tastes is their character of qualitative difference, discri- 
mination, intellection. 

Sight and Hearing. 

Still confining ourselves to bare sense, we will couple also 
hearing and sight. Considered purely as sense, I think 
that hearing is perhaps the most specialised of all the special 
senses, but sight, though less highly specialised as mere 
sense, is of far greater importance for perception. Subjec- 
tively taken, they are so far related, that what we say of the 
one as sense, we can say of the other, e. g. we can speak 
of a ' loud colour/ Nevertheless hearing gives its language 
to sight, rather than vice versa. It is because of its extreme 



72 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

specialisation that Taine 1 selected hearing as the sense 
to describe in full detail, saying the other senses could be 
understood in terms of this. This, in our present order, 
would be a reason for taking sight first as less specialised. 
But it is at the same time a reason for commencing with 
hearing, inasmuch as this sense gives clues to the under- 
standing of sight. 

The organ in each case is unique, for not only is there to 
each a special nerve having the sole function of transmitting 
sounds or sights, but it ends in an extremely complex 
apparatus, the proper sensitive surfaces in which are not 
visible externally. It is in these sensitive structures that ear 
and eye stand so far above other sense-organs. In the ear, its 
external part or pinna, and its middle part or tympanum, 
are merely appendages to the internal ear or labyrinth, 
helping to make stimulation effective, the last, viz. the ' fibres 
of Corti/ being the only sentient part. The ' semi-circular 
canals' in the ear are not concerned with hearing, the 
nerve which supplies them not going to the auditory centre. 
Stimulation of them seems to be connected with sensations 
of equilibrium and rotation, and this consciousness of co-or- 
dination must either be added as another special sense, or be 
included under General Sensibility. In the eye, the sensitive 
structure or retina, where the physical stimulus of ether- 
vibrations is changed to nerve-process, is spread like a 
curtain over the back of the eye, and has, though only -^ 
inch thick, at least eight different layers, only two of which 
are nervous, the others merely promoting the stimuli. The 
eye is in this respect the very acme of a specialised sense- 
organ. Unlike the other senses, the stimuli necessary to 
affect the nerves of sight and hearing can be precisely 
1 V. De V Intelligence, Paris, 1885 ; liv. Ill, chap. i. 



x.] Elements of Psychology. 73 

determined, and again, their high development has caused 
the special branches of physics, optics, and acoustics to be 
constructed. 

Coming to the subjective side, note the relation between 
hearing and taste or smell. Sounds are painful or pleasant, 
and the latter we often call ' sweet/ the former ' harsh/ But 
the range of discriminate sounds is vastly greater than that 
of discriminable tastes and smells. Professor Bain proceeds 
from quality of sounds to deal with quantify of sounds. The 
fact that he did not do so under Taste and Smell indicates 
the greater development in the sense of hearing. The 
former senses can be distinguished as varying in intensity, 
but in the case of sounds the degree of intensity can be 
measured with the greatest precision. Moreover, quantity 
of sound can be subdivided into Intensity and Amplitude. 
Again, we differentiate sounds as notes, tones, or musical 
sounds, and as noises. The former are distinguishable in 
a third respect, viz. Pitch, and in another, that of Timbre 
or clang-tint (Klangfarbe\ Another distinctive kind of 
auditory experience is that of a certain concurrence of 
sounds we call Harmony and Discord, and of sequences of 
sounds we call Melody. However, these have their analogues 
in well-ordered successions and combinations of tastes. 
There are, so to say, harmonies and melodies of taste. 
But there is nothing in gastronomy corresponding to the 
high development attained by physical and physiological 
acoustics. 

With Light we may also deal quantitatively as well as 
qualitatively, and equally with sound, we can give expression 
in physics and physiology to the different effects we are 
conscious of in sight. Next, is there in light a corresponding 
distinction to that between sounds and noises ? Yes, there 



74 Elements of Psychology. 

are sensations of sight as such, i. e. light and sensations of 
colour. And in colour we can distinguish the result of 
variety in rate of ether-vibrations, just as pitch depends 
on rate of sound-vibrations, but there is little proportion 
between the two, the range in pitch lying between 16 to 20 
and 36,000 vibrations per second, that in scale of colour from 
400 to 800 billions per second. Nevertheless, whereas in 
sounds there is the possibility of duplication over and over 
again, yielding a series of 'octaves,' the whole range or 
gamut of colour is for us exhausted within one single 
octave, from red to violet. The analogy is there, but it is 
a likeness with a difference. You will find that the detail 
of sound is better made out and understood than is the case 
with colour, proving that hearing is the most specialised 
sense. There are, moreover, harmony and melody analogues 
in colour, but here again there is less exactness and definite- 
ness possible. It is in hearing that we see what sense for 
us, as sense, can come to. 



For Lecture XI read : — 

Hoffding, V, A, §§ 4, 5; I, 8d; Sully, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 
40-43 ; Ward, pp. 50, 51 ; 53, 54 ; Croom Robertson, Philosophical 
Remains, ' The Senses.' 

Note. — It is not till he deals with Feeling that Professor Hoffding 
gives a very fairly detailed account of the different senses. He 
makes little account of sensation in connexion with Cognition, l/ut 
takes great account of it as a mode of Feeling. 



The lecturer used to refer advanced students to Ladd's Physiological 
Psychology, Part II, for a detailed account of research into the 
quantity and quality of sensations. — Ed. 



LECTURE XI. 

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE SENSES. 
Radical Differences in Sense. 

Reviewing what we have found in sense, we find we can 
say nothing about the most highly specialised sense, hearing, 
that we cannot to some extent say of every other special sense. 
Yet while there is a certain continuity between them, there is 
always from one point of view a complete break. Each 
special kind of sensation has a character apart and of its 
own. And this marked subjective difference corresponds to 
difference in the special organs. 

Relativity of Sensation, 

Thus it is possible that we might have more kinds of 
sensation if we had more organs. For the physical pro- 
cesses which give stimuli to such senses as we have are 
a very small part of all the physical processes going on 
around us. And they give those stimuli within a very limited 
range : e. g. we only hear sounds, when the air-vibrations are 
at a certain rate. Vibrations at other rates may be going on 
of which we, through the limitation of our sense of hearing, 



76 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

know nothing. Similarly with ether-vibrations. The sense- 
affections are therefore purely relative 1 . Again, the same 
physical process that appears to skin-sensibility as heat, 
appears to sight as light, ether-vibrations being the medium 
of both heat and light. The same physical process appears 
differently to different senses — or may not appear (directly) 
at all. Actinic rays affect the photographer's plate, but not 
our retina. 

Quality and Quantity of Sensation. 

Of the general characters of sensation, quality is the most 
fundamental. Every sensation, whatever else it has, must 
have a qualitative aspect distinct both from other kinds and 
within the same kind. And the more special the sense the 
larger number or range of qualitatively different sensations 
does it include. 

Next, sensations not differing qualitatively may, within the 
same sense, differ quantitatively : e. g. the same note of 
a piano may differ in intensity or degree, may be soft or loud. 
Thus quality and quantity are apparently independent 
variables. Speciality of sense finds expression in quantity 
as well as quality. Consider, e.g., the quantitative range 
of sight and sound as contrasted with that of taste and 
smell. 

This aspect of intensity of sensation has been well studied 
by the science of psycho-physics. Sensation depends upon 
stimulus. Now stimuli, being facts of the external world, 
may be viewed quantitatively ; we may take a unit of stimulus, 
or any multiple of it. Since stimuli then can be considered 
quantitatively, and sensations also differ in intensity, are 

1 Cf. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, Lect. VIII, pp. 141-145 

(Ed. Mansel and Veitch). 



XL] Elements of Psychology. 77 

there definite numerical relations between the latter taken 
subjectively? and if so, can there be any fixed relation 
between degrees of stimulus and subjective intensity of 
sensation ? 

* Weber s Law.' 

Weber and Fechner, from thirty to forty years ago, 
inquired into the existence of such a relation, and held that 
they had succeeded in framing a law of the relation between 
sensation and stimulus quantitatively expressed, termed the 
Psycho-physical Law, all investigations leading up to it being 
(then) known as psycho-physics. Intensity of sensation does 
not increase at the same rate as intensity of stimulus. For 
intensities of sensation to increase in arithmetic progression, 
intensity of stimulus must increase in geometric progression. 
Thus to increase to 10 1 intensity in sensation expressed 
as 100, we may require an increase in stimulus of 100 to 
no, but to raise intensity to 102 the stimulus must be raised 
to 121. 

A certain degree of stimulus-intensity is necessary before 
it is effective at all : this is known as the threshold, and the 
value of the stimulus at that point gives the threshold-value 
of that sense to which the stimulus is applied. The difference 
in degree of stimulus necessary to take effect is called * the 
least observable difference.' 

Is Intensity a fundamental distinction ? 

This psycho-physical law is probably not an ultimate law. 
It is still a doubtful point whether, however we seem to 
distinguish quantity from quality in consciousness, intensity 
may be no fundamental distinction, but explainable in terms 
of quality. 



78 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

This doubt, raised by later psycho- physical research as to 
the reality of intensity as regards sensation, brings up the 
question how far it is wise to substitute its opposite ( exten- 
sity' for mass or volume among the quantitative aspects of 
sensation as Dr. Ward does 1 . To me it seems — that to 
introduce this special aspect in order to establish later on 
a theory of perception with respect to extension is begging 
the question of extension later on. The notion of extension 
belongs to the more complex subject of perception, and not 
to sensation at all. Intensity had better establish itself first, 
before it brings in its parallel expression Extensity. If 
intensity were to fall qua fundamental distinction, it would 
drag extensity with it. 

Sense considered Emotionally and Intellectually. 

We must now proceed to consider the senses from a point 
of view other than their relative speciality. The experience 
we have from a sense is psychologically to be regarded in 
a twofold way: (1) such as it appears to consciousness with 
respect to the pleasure or pain it produces, in other words, 
from its emotional aspect; and (2) as it is of account to us 
from its intellectual aspect, in other words, as it enters into 
the fabric of our knowledge. 

The Senses as affording Emotional Values. 

It is quite plain that each of the senses presents us 
with states of consciousness which we can most adequately 
describe as feeling, that is, as the case may be, either pleasur- 
able or painful. Looked at from this side, the senses will 

1 V. Art. * Psychology/ Encyclop. Brit. 



XL] Elements of Psychology. 79 

show a great difference. Sweet and bitter tastes, to a child 
at any rate, are distinct pleasurable and painful experiences. 
So for fragrant smells and mal-odours, sweet and harsh 
sounds. Lower in the scale of specialisation, in organic 
sensibility, we cannot say that to every mode there are both 
of these aspects, for some are pleasurable only, some painful 
only, while others, it is true, are known under both aspects. 
The special senses however have both positive and negative, 
i.e. pleasurable and painful, emotional values. And it will 
be possible to order the senses from this point of view, 
although this cannot be done by taking both values into 
consideration together, inasmuch as those senses which 
afford the greatest amount of pain do not in all cases 
afford the greatest amount of pleasure. Skin-sensibility, e.g., 
affords some of the acutest pains we can feel, while the 
majority of its non-painful sensations are rather neutral than 
pleasurable. 

If then the senses are to be ordered either from the point 
of view of pleasure or pain, the former is on the whole 
preferable, since in this way we can most definitely and 
usefully order them. And we shall find accordingly, that 
sight and hearing will come last as affording the greatest 
variety of pleasure. For it is in regard to the variety and 
continuity of the pleasures afforded by the senses that we 
must consider them, since de gustibus non est disputandum. 
People will never agree as to which sense affords actually the 
acutest pleasure, though they may agree as to which affords 
the highest range of pleasures and which affords those that 
last longest. If we consider mere intensity of pleasure at 
the moment of production, there seems no doubt that some 
kinds of organic sensibility rank highest; and so also for 
pain ; cf. toothache pains. But we can see plainly, that 



8o 



Elements of Psychology. 



[Lfxt. 



there is nothing like the pleasure produced by music and 
by hearing generally in the case of the lower senses, and 
whoever has entered into these pleasures has an abiding 
possession in them. A feast, even if you have tasted it, 
yet have it not at the present moment, is not worth much. 
Apart however from hearing and sight, it is difficult 
to order the other senses, though we mark that the more 
elaborated the structure of the special sense-organ, the more 
abiding is the pleasure got from it. 

The Senses as entering into the fabric of our Knowledge. 

If we proceed to order the senses with regard to their 
intellectual value we shall get a very different order from that 
which had regard to speciality. In either case organic 
sensibility comes first as being at once least intellectual and 
least special, although, as we have seen, it has some intel- 
lectual value of a very special sort, while in intensity of 
pleasure and especially of pain it ranks high. 



Order of Increasing Speciality. 

Organic Sensibility. 
Skin-sensibility. 
Taste and Smell. 
Sight and Hearing. 



Order of Increasing Intellectual 
Value. 

Organic Sensibility. 

Temperature. 

Taste. 

Smell. 

Hearing. 

Touch and Sight. 



Here we see that the mode of skin-sensibility we call 
touch becomes under the second head of the highest 
importance. It is only in the case of some animals, such 
as the dog, that smell ranks higher than touch in this 



XL] Elements of Psychology. 81 

respect. Smell is put higher than taste, intellectually, 
because it gives us knowledge of things at a greater distance 
than taste, and so a fortiori does hearing. And in respect 
of knowledge got through speech, hearing ranks first of all ; 
it is in respect of knowledge got directly in- sense-perception 
that touch and sight excel it. But sight remains after all 
the one pre-eminent sense, heading as it does in both 
categories. 

Now there is a law we find implied but not actually stated by 
Professor Bain, viz. Wherever a sense is found to stand high in 
regard to its value with respect to knowledge, there is always 
a large range of feelings connected with it which are neither 
pleasurable nor painful. In organic sensibility, e.g., all 
feelings may be ranked as either pleasures or pains, but of 
most touches and sights we must say that they are neutral ; 
we are neither pleasurably nor painfully, but only differently, 
affected by them ; in fact our consciousness is to be described 
as discriminative, and we know that discrimination is the 
mark of intellection. Our three most intellectual senses 
afford us eminently a variety of discriminable experience. 
An orchestral conductor, e. g., with a great variety of instru- 
ments being played around him, can single out any one 
that goes wrong. Again, we can distinguish many touches 
at once, many objects of sight at once. But tastes and 
smells tend to fuse indistinguishably ; still more so organic 
sensibility. If the organs of sense are compared it will be 
seen that those of touch and sight lend themselves to 
many simultaneous impressions, that of hearing some- 
what less so, and those of the rest much less. It does not 
matter, e.g., to discrimination whether we taste sugar with 
the front or back of the tongue, or smell with the right or 
left nostril. But in the retina and the skin, we find that 

G 



82 Elements of Psychology. 

stimulation of different tracts is connected with sensations 
variously discriminated. 



For Lecture XII read: — 

Bain, pp. 12-14; 17-24; Hoffding, V, A, § 6; Sully, pp. 65-70; 
Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, ' Feelings of Muscular Exercise/ 
§11 and footnote. 

Also cf. W. S. Mackenzie, Mind, July, 1887 ; G. C. Robertson, 
Mind, vi, p. 120 et seq. ; Mind, xv, 524; or in Philosophical Remains , 
PP. 3i7-3 2 4 J 39 2 -39 6 - 



LECTURE XII. 



MUSCULAR SENSE. 



Consciousness and Motor Impulses, 

We must now return to the consideration of a point we 
left over till the present, viz. whether there is a conscious 
experience in connexion with the efferent 1 side of the ner- 
vous system ? All the sense-experiences we have hitherto 
considered were those in which we are passively affected, i. e. 
in which the brain has been roused by afferent nerve-fibres. 
Now we saw that disturbances passed out again by efferent 
nerves producing always (except in the case of the glands) 
muscular contraction, these nerves terminating in muscular 
fibre. Muscles are connected with bones, hence their 
contraction causes motion in space, and accordingly efferent 
discharges are called motor impulses, because they result in 
visible motion. All nervous disturbance is motor, but it is 
in itself of the kind of motion called molecular, and is to 
a certain extent hypothetical. By motor here we mean the 
overt results of nervous activity, and not the process itself. 
So the question becomes, When there is an outgoing or 
motor impulse, or innervation of muscle, is there an accom- 
panying conscious experience ? If there is, of what nature is 
it ? and upon what does it depend ? Since, however, by 
* motor ' we mean overt results of nervous activity, and since 

Lect VI, p. 39. 
G 2 



84 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

we may get a sense of activity put forth without visible 
movement, it is perhaps best to avoid the term and frame 
the question thus : — Have we any form of conscious ex- 
perience accompanying muscular action whether it results 
in movement or in strain ? 

Direct Consciousness of Activity put forth. 

All psychologists agree that we have a sort of sensation 
in connexion with muscular contraction, a sort that cannot 
be referred to any of the special senses, and is properly to 
be described as a mode of organic sensibility. This sensibility 
arises from the stimulation of afferent nerve-fibres distributed 
amongst the muscles, which fibres are affected when the 
muscle contracts, either violently as in cramp, or more 
gently as in ordinary muscular movements. And when the 
muscles have contracted, the resulting sensation is dependent, 
not only on the stimulation of afferent fibres ending in the 
muscle, but also on that of other afferent fibres ending in 
the joints and in the adjacent internal organs, as well as in 
the sensitive skin lying over the muscles, which contributes 
an element of special sense. Many important psychologists 
think that our conscious experience in connexion with mus- 
cular activity is exhausted by this account. 

But Professors Bain, Wundt, and others do not agree to this. 
They hold that, beyond any kind of conscious experience 
depending on the stimulation of afferent nerve-fibres in and 
about muscle, there is an initial fact of experience in con- 
nexion with the contraction of muscle which depends, not 
on any stimulus that is received, but on the sending out of the 
impulse from the brain, and thus is related to the action of 
efferent fibres. This is the muscular sense proper. Wundt 
calls this experience sensations of innervation ; they are held 



xil] Elements of Psychology, 85 

to arise in the very act or fact of motor impulse being sent 
out from brain-centre to muscle. 

The point has been much contested. There is a some- 
thing in the sensation of putting muscles into action that 
can never be explained by the stimulation of afferent nerve- 
fibres. True, from the nature of our constitution, we never 
have this factor of active conscious experience by itself 1 , but 
have it always mixed up with other, mainly organic, sensi- 
bility. But that there is an independent factor, a residuum 
of conscious experience not expressible in terms of stimulation 
of nerve-fibres, is , I think, indubitable. The accompanying 
organic sensibility swells the effect, but apart from this 
organic sensibility of muscular contraction and of adjacent 
parts, we do have consciousness of outgoing energy ; we are 
conscious, I repeat, not only at the moment of contraction, 
but also before, at the emission from the brain, at the 
stage of innervation itself. Professors Bain and Wundt 
are too exclusive; they admit none of the many elements 
contended for by the other side, as they might do without 
surrendering their position. The evidence, I admit, is very 
difficult, the facts allowing of interpretation either way. And 
this is just because the sense is so complex. There is no 
case I have seen but bears a possibility of twofold inter- 
pretation. But the evidence tends my way. And if we are 
to reason upon anterior probabilities, we may ask, why 
should we not be conscious when the brain sends out, as we 
are when the brain receives ? There is all the difference in 
the world between our being affected and our acting. Why 
should I be conscious only in * being affected ' ? But I reject 
the extreme position, that consciousness had by me on 

1 Professor Bain, by his order of treatment, rather leads us to 
suppose that we can have it in isolation. 



86 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

occasion of acting is muscular sense only: I accept the 
contributions from the other side. 

Muscular Sense, as Sense, is Unique. 

Now note, that if we call this fact muscular sense, then the 
term ' sense ' must be extended so as to apply to conscious 
experience that arises when the brain is called into play in 
any connexion with the peripheral nervous system, by aid 
both of afferent and efferent nerves. But muscular sense 
stands apart. In our consciousness of putting out muscular 
activity there is a something not brought about in direct con- 
nexion with a stimulus from without, not expressible in terms 
of passive sensation, not on a line with the modes of general 
and special sensibility considered up to this point. 

Analysis of Muscular Sensations. 
If then there is such a thing as muscular sense, of what 
nature is it ? upon what does it depend ? We are said 
to distinguish two modes of muscular sense, (i) muscular 
activity resulting in motion, (2) muscular activity resulting 
in dead strain. These are fundamentally different modes, 
and yet the distinction, although of the first importance, is only 
relative. No activity is so free as to be wholly unimpeded, 
and none is so impeded as not to be partly free. The 
two modes pass into one another. Notice that Professor 
Bain distinguishes (1) as 'Feelings of Movement 1 / Here 
he is premature. When we are conscious of movement, 
we cannot be said to be purely sensitive, we are nothing 
short of perceptive. Muscular sense may be of account in 
our getting percepts, but it does not, as such, yield con- 
sciousness of movement. The very meaning of movement 
for us. is a certain change in space. One is aware of 

1 Op. cit., pp. 22, 23. 



xil] Elements of Psychology. 87 

something going from one place to another. It is begging 
the question to account for space from so-called feelings 
of movement. We should speak only of perception of 
movement. Movement, resistance, and such terms of 
perception have no meaning for us at this stage. We are 
here concerned wkh a simple factor of experience, never 
had, it is true, in isolation from other conscious impressions, 
but which, as sense of effort, of energy, of ' virtue gone out 
of/ of activity put forth, does not really admit of any 
legitimate division. There is relative safety in the distinction, 
introduced by Professor Sully, between Free and Impeded 
Energy, but even that is going too far. We ought not 
here to be anxious to distinguish. In sending out impulse 
to muscles there is conscious experience — this is all \ 

Muscular Sense as a Coefficient. 

Now here is a singular fact, not in the books, that 
muscular sense, whatever it may involve, has only for eighty 
or ninety years been distinguished and spoken about ! Some 
therefore say it does not exist. Whence this blank, old and 
new ? The muscular sense was ignored because we never 
are muscularly sensible simply and purely. Some other sense 
masks it. And analysis, which had not discerned the 
chemical elements of water, did not discriminate in con- 
sciousness. We can move no muscle that is not the cause 
of tactile sensation, or of its cessation. All mobile organs are 
organs also of passive sensation : we cannot put forth activity 

1 Professor Bain is again misleading when he distinguishes between 
feelings connected with Muscular Activity and Discriminating Power 
of Muscle. The latter is only muscular sense viewed as of account 
for perception. Here again the distinction between sense and per- 
ception is not clearly drawn. 



88 Elements of Psychology. 

without being liable to be passively affected. And this is 
why Locke and others did not discern muscular sense. 

Sensation proper may be called passive sense, and muscular 
sense may be called sense of activity, though not active sense. 
By thus recognising muscular sense, we obtain in it a co- 
efficient for transforming passive into active sense. 

All the senses previously taken account of present more or 
less two phases, according as they occur in purity or with 
this coefficient : e. g. we have Active Touch and Passive 
Touch. If I am touched, I have a passive sensation. If 
I touch some one, I have a passive sensation, but I am also 
conscious of activity put forth. Active touch then is the 
being affected by contact on occasion of activity put forth. 

'Active sense' is not muscular sense. It has no use in 
psychology save as meaning passive sense transformed by 
muscular sense as a coefficient. 

Let the student think for himself how this is shown in 
the other senses ; how more or less, and why more, why 
less, before reading the next lecture. Beginning with 
organic sensibility, do we in each sense distinguish by distinct 
terms between being affected simply and actively seeking 
sensation ? 



For Lecture XIII read : — 
Hoffding, V, A, § 7 ; Bain, pp. 45-47. 

Note. — Prof. Hoffding deals with Perception in considerable detail, 
but follows a different line from mine, throwing the subject to the 
end of his discussion of Cognition. His view is, however, in the 
main consistent with mine. 



LECTURE XIII. 

ACTIVE SENSE AND QUALITATIVE DIFFERENCE IN SENSATION. 

Active Sense, 

Let it not be forgotten that any antithesis between the 
muscular sense and the other senses is not one of active as 
opposed to passive sense. Consciousness in the former is 
just as much affection as in the latter. The activity is in 
the muscles. There is no adequate excuse for calling 
muscular sense active sense. But in muscular sense we 
cannot distinguish between an active and a passive phase. 
Its unique function is, as coefficient, to transform the passivity 
of other sensations into what may be called active sense. 

How far are the various senses transformed by the presence 
of this coefficient ? 

The organs of organic sensibility are not provided with 
muscles that we can call into play, hence our power to 
procure such sensations is of the most limited kind, as e. g. in 
inhaling (as distinct from smelling). Our activity is chiefly, 
not to get, but to get rid of, such sensations. Organic 
sensibility then remains as the type of passive sensation. 

In Taste both phases appear, according to the extent to 
which we move the gustatory organs. We can scarcely get 
tastes without actively tasting ; but the inevitable accompani- 
ment of touch is an added complexity. 



90 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

In Temperature no special form of sense of muscular 
activity is involved. 

Smell is also predominantly passive, but we can scent or 
sniff; i.e. we may smell on occasion of special muscular 
activity. 

In Hearing we may either submit passively to hear certain 
sounds, or we may listen or hearken, putting our head, our 
hand, our body, in some particular attitude. Here again the 
coefficient is at a very low power. 

In Sight, on the other hand, the sense is predominantly 
active. We are passively affected by light and colour, but 
deliberately to see, to look at, to inspect, to contemplate, 
involves sensations of a multitude of minute muscular adjust- 
ments. 

But it is in Touch that the two phases are most strongly 
marked, viz. touching and being touched. The tactile organs 
are at the same time muscular organs. 

Now those sense-organs that give us active sense pre- 
dominantly are mobiles, liable to move while being affected. 
Cf. the number of muscles in the mechanism of the eye, 
through which we can exert conscious activity. Cf. next the 
very different degrees of mobility in the organs of touch. 
Were all as the hand, touch would come before sight. But 
contrast with the hand the immobility of the back ! Take 
the opposite extreme, the organs of organic sensibility. Here 
there is no mobility on occasion of our being affected. 
Take the mean: in hearing and smell the activity is put 
forth, not by the organ, but by auxiliary appendages and 
other members. To the extent that any sense is under 
muscular control, to that extent do we find active sense. 
Only where the sense-organ is mobile, do we find active 
sense approaching purity. 



xiii.] Elements of Psychology. 91 

Muscular Sense as of account in Perception. 

Why do I lay so much stress on all this? Because per- 
ceptio?i, and especially objective perception, as opposed to 
sensation, is a kind of conscious experience i?tto which there in- 
evitably enters consciousness of activity put forth, i.e. muscular 
sense. Muscular sensation therefore must be markedly of 
account for objective perception. And whatever it can do 
for us in the way of objective perception, it will do in sight 
and touch, since it is best developed in connexion with these 
two senses. I look at a book and call it an object', why? 
None of the modes of passive sensation gives the real heart of 
what is meant by objective quality. Whatever is a sensible 
object for us is so primarily in terms of two qualities : 
Extension and Resistance. Nothing is a sensible object to 
us that is not spread out in space or resisting. Some things 
are spread out without resisting; hence we have reason 
for saying that extension is the fundamental aspect of an 
object. Bodies only are both extended and resisting. Now 
extension is something that we cannot take in except by way 
of active sense-experience. Still more obviously is this true 
of resistance. Hence the muscular sense that goes with 
that muscular activity is psychologically the fundamental 
factor in any sense-perception. And as secondary factors 
there enter into sense-perception those modes of passive 
sense that are most intimately connected with muscular sense 
as coefficient. 

Qualitative Difference in Sensations. 

Consider now the senses in respect of the liability of their 
respective organs to be affected in different ways. (I think it 
a gain to treat of this expressly unlike the books.) Take 



92 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

smell : any odour engrosses the whole organ of scent. The 
perfume of two flowers becomes fused, though complex. 
One impression results. So with tastes, though to a less 
extent. We may break up a complex taste, but it requires 
effort. The impressions are more or less unified. Nor do 
we, in organic sensibility, differentiate sensations from the 
same organ. We do not suffer with one lung, and enjoy 
with the other. We have no variety of distinct impressions. 
Now come to hearing. We have a multitude of distinguishable 
impressions. Many we may fuse, but we can have a sense 
of manifold impressions. We can say, we hear differently in 
connexion with different parts of the organ of hearing, and 
only one kind of sound with each single part. Here is the 
ground of the relatively great intellectual importance of 
Hearing, as we shall see. 

In Touch and Sight we get the most striking exempli- 
fications of manifold distinction ; that is, in Touch proper ; 
not in skin-sensibility generally, as sensations of Tempera- 
ture fuse. We are able to have a number of simultaneous 
Touches distinctly. And we find a remarkable local difference 
in the sensitiveness of the organ of touch. You have read 
of Weber's experiments, made in 1843, under Professor 
Bain's section entitled ' Plurality of Points.' What is the 
import of this Plurality of Points, or, preferably, of these 
1 Distinguishable Touches,' or again, of this ' Local Difference 
in Sensitiveness ' ? Simply that (a) we touch very differently 
with different parts of the tactile organ, and can be conscious 
of more than one touch, as a plurality, at the same time ; 
(b) that according to the part affected and its absolute range 
of sentience, we have qualitatively distinct, or qualitatively 
undistinguishable impressions, e.g. we can at the finger-tip 
distinguish two points of contact with the tip ^ inch apart, but 



xiil] Elements of Psychology. 93 

not T X 8 inch apart. Qualitative Difference is my poinl ; not 
Quantitative Difference, for we can distinguish pressures 
which are equal ; and not Distance, of which, directly, Dis- 
tinguishable Touches tell us nothing. The two points of the 
compass on the skin may afterwards come to be interpreted 
as being a certain distance apart, but that is not a question 
of sense only, with which we are still for a moment concerned. 
Finally, distinguishable touches are only exaggerations of 
the qualitative differences we apprehend in Sight. With 
different parts of the retina we can distinguish qualitatively 
more or less. Light-impressions reach their maximum of 
distinctness at the ' yellow spot ' ; at the sides of the retina 
'Aey are less distinct; at the ' blind spot' they are nil. 
Different parts of the retina are more effective than others 
for different colours. The fact of qualitative difference in 
Sight is more easily demonstrable than in Touch, because the 
spatial idea intrudes so much less. Even in Touch, as we 
saw, the real difference is qualitative, not spatial at all. 



For Lecture XIV read Hoffding, V, B, § i. 



LECTURE XIV. 

SENSATION AND SENSE-PERCEPTION. 

Transition from Sensation to Perception through Active Sense. 

Now for the collective result of our inquiries. With respect 
to combination with Muscular Sense, Touch and Sight stand 
apart from the other senses. With respect to varying 
sensitivity, they also stand apart, though less so than does 
Hearing. Herefrom we may draw an important concluson. 
Here we have the basis for the Psychology of Perception. 
We now step from Sense to Sense-perception. 

Sensation as an abstraction front, Perception as a fact of Actual 

Consciousness. 

What do we mean by Perception 1 as distinct from Sensa- 
tion ? Sense, we saw, is a kind of conscious experience had 
under certain assigned conditions. It is a necessary term, 
but I have never said that what we have been calling Sense 
represents an actual fact of our conscious experience — that 
it constitutes all our consciousness at any given moment. 
Any sense-experience that we can make the subject of our 
consideration, that we actually find ourselves having, is 
something more than Sensation — is never pure Sense. Ap- 

1 Perception should no longer be used ambiguously. Once almost 
or quite synonymous with Thinking, it has in the last generation 
come to stand for Sense-perception, apprehension on occasion oi 
sense. 



Elements of Psychology. 95 

proximately so only, it is true, in Systemic Sensations, our 
sense-experience is always, if in different degrees, somehow 
related or referred. Even those Systemic Sensations are 
held to be connected with some part of my body, to be within 
the organism. Sensation bare and simple we never get. 
Much more is this referring seen in Special Sensations. 
A sound is never thought of as purely subjective, but always 
as ' proceeding from ' somewhere. This coloured band 
round the wall is referred, not to ourselves at all, but, as a 
quality r , to a certain thing. Most of all in Touch do we relate 
roughness, weight, solidity, &c, to -an object, as its attributes 
or properties. This definite projection of colour, sound, and 
touch is far removed from the indefiniteness with which we 
spatially refer our organic sensations, some indeed of which 
we cannot localise at all. There is, again, a great difference in 
the deflniteness with which we project Tastes and Smells from 
the case of the other special senses. I venture to assert that 
when I say ' lump of sugar/ you think of a white, glistening 
object before you think of sweetness. ' A rose ' implies for us 
a smell. But we all think of the rose as visible and tangible 
and then as fragrant. Sensations, then, are spatially referred, 
but not in the same way nor on the same level. 

This is unquestionably our natural way of regarding sense- 
experiences. They appear, not as mere sensations in us, 
but as sensible qualities of things. It is only by an effort of 
psychological analysis that we regard them as subjective. 
The distinction is not in actual appearance, but in thought. 
Sensation is really an abstraction, formed for purposes of 
psychological study. Naturally we interpret most sensations 
not as affections of the subject, but as qualities of things, and 
it is sometimes very hard to think of them otherwise than as 
qualities of things. 



96 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

Perception as Apprehension of ' Thing ' or ' Object? 

What we have now to investigate, viz. the psychological 
problem of Perception, may be expressed thus : How do 
sensations, in themselves bare facts of subjective experience, 
come to appear in our consciousness as sensible, or rather as 
perceptible, qualities of things ? What is involved in saying 
4 perceptible things ' ? 

Perception as the Relating of Sensations. 

The transformation of things as sensible, i.e. of subjective 
experience or affections of the subject, into things as per- 
ceptible, of the abstractions of bare sense into actual experience, 
is effected, as we saw, by putting sensation somehow or other 
into certain Relations. Every mental experience we have is 
related to something else which it is not. This means that 
work of Intellection has been done upon it. And that work 
signifies not merely affection, but activity. Without subjec- 
tive affection we could not perceive at all, but perception as 
opposed to sense has the implication of activity. Perception 
is really a term of objective import : it signifies the apprehen- 
sion, or grasp, of an object; it suggests the putting forth 
somehow of muscular activity or innervation (though the 
muscular activity may not be overt). Hence it can no longer 
be expressed in terms of bare Feeling. And inasmuch as the 
activity is not immediately directed to an end, it must be 
regarded pre-eminently under the phase of Intellection. Per- 
ception will accordingly be found to exemplify, under 
assignable conditions, the working of the compound function 
of Intellection, viz. Discrimination and Assimilation. Now 
every sensation that we have is ordered somehow in space. 
The spatial reference may be at a minimum, in actual 
experience, but it is ever present. This is Perception's most 



xiv.] Elements of Psychology. 97 

characteristic feature. In so far as we spatially refer sensa- 
tion, we are, psychologically, perceiving. To the extent 
indeed that we differentiate one sensation from another, con- 
scious that ' It is this, not that/ we are perceiving. Perception 
is discrimination and assimilation on occasion of sense. But 
it is for the consciousness that 'It is here, not there/ that the 
term Perception is specially reserved. Perception proper is 
grouping our sensations in some spatial order. 

The Philosophical, as distinct from the Psychological, 
aspect of Perception. 

Note here in passing how this bare psychological meaning 
is distinct from the philosophical sense of Perception. The 
philosophical term Cognition is not bare Intellection. You 
cognise a certain object. Hence the philosophical problem : 
What corresponds in reality to my subjective experience ? 
Is there a real pillar there corresponding to my perception of 
it ? Our question now is : That pillar is known to me by 
sense-experiences ; how have the latter come to be grouped 
for me into a percept — to appear to me as a pillar ? And 
generally : How do sensations appear objectively, appear in 
some kind of spatial order, appear as spatially referred ? 
Philosophically we ask : What is the reality of that pillar 
that appears to me to be there ? Psychologically we ask : 
How does that pillar appear to me to be there x ? 

The Psychological Problem of Perception. 

Now, then, we are intellective, and if intellective, then per- 
ceptive, when by us sensations are referred, and especially, 
spatially referred. How do we come thus to refer sensations, 
some to the body, some to ' things ' apart from the body ? 

1 Professor Bain is apt to mix up these questions, which leads to 
much confusion. 

H 



98 Elements of Psychology. [Lect.. 

How do sensations become elements in the construction of 
objects ? 

The relatively Active Senses as the Substructure of 
Objective Perception. 

Remember that the amount of elaboration undergone by 
sensations in Perception varies greatly from one to another. 
Even of the sensations that do come to appear as definite 
sensible qualities of objects, some do so in a primary, others 
only in a secondary, manner. The dejiniteness of the reference 
varies indefinitely. Any psychological theory of Perception 
ought to account for this. 

Now analyse a perception, e.g. a slight cut by a knife. 
The pain is sensation. The brightness of the blade is 
sensation. Why do you not put the brightness into the skin 
and the pain into the knife ? Again, the band of colour on 
the wall is a sensation of mine which seems a. sensible quality 
of a thing — and there is no fear that it will not seem so. 
Yet is it so? A colour-blind person may not be able to 
distinguish between green and red ; all reds for him are green. 
If he and I both look at a geranium leaf we agree. If we 
look at the flower, I see red, he sees green. Manifestly the 
flower cannot be both ; hence it follows that neither colour is 
inherent in the flower (the identity of which is not disputed), 
but is an interpretation each of us gives to it. That pillar 
opposite, which is cream-coloured to-day, would, if green 
to-morrow, be no less a pillar. Even if a wooden one were 
substituted, it would be no less ' a pillar,' although it would 
yield a different sound from that belonging to this iron 
one if tapped, and a different smell. But if it had no longer 
the quality of Resistance — if I could walk through it, if 



xiv.] Elements of Psychology. 99 

I could not touch it — we should then begin to doubt if 
a pillar were there at all. 

It is by Active Touch, then, that we chiefly recognise the 
existence of an object, and, with that, Active Sight, which is 
so inextricably interwoven with Active Touch that scarcely 
a single experience of the one does not also involve the other. 
Objects are for us first of all Tangible and Visible ; second- 
arily, odorous, rapid, audible, &c. 

Can we reduce these two to one ? In the end Visibility 
comes to be commensurate with Perceptibility. To perceive 
is to see. The eye is ultimately our most effective organ of 
Perception. But with Berkeley we must maintain, that 
Perception is, at bottom, Touch. No one has lived really 
without sense of Touch ; it is the first and the last of the 
senses. People are born without Sight, but not without 
Touch. It is difficult to conceive an objective world obtain- 
able by Sight without Touch, though it may be, and is, 
obtained without Sight. The work of Sight, however high 
and splendid, is superstructure. It is Active Touch that gives 
the substructure for Perception. 

Therefore, you ' see/ we must begin with Touch, with a 
theory of Tactile Perception. 



For Lecture XV read : — 

Bain. pp. 47-50 ; Hoffding, V, C, §§ 5-10; G. C. Robertson, Mind, 
xiii, 'The Psychological Theory of Extension,' or in Philosoph. 
Remains, pp 279-287 ; Ward, pp. 51-57. 

Lore. 



H 2 



LECTURE XV. 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF OBJECTIVE PERCEPTION. 
Recapitulation, 

In Touch and Sight we have the power of getting the one 
or the other kind of sense-experience as we like. We can 
turn one mode of sensation directly into another by activity 
of ours of which we are conscious. We can control these 
senses by muscular activity. Hence their importance for 
Perception. And relatively to the whole organ of tactile 
sensibility, i.e. the skin, the hand is as the yellow spot is to 
the whole organ of sight, i. e. the retina. The motion of the 
eye has the effect of making indirect vision direct, and direct 
vision indirect : this is all. So the hand brings into direct 
tactile apprehension what was before indirect, if touched only 
by relatively insensitive parts of the skin. But since Touch 
and Sight play different parts in Perception, though so 
closely allied, we will treat them separately and in an order 
already accounted for. 

The Mutual Relation of Touch and Sight in Perception. 

Take the pillar opposite me: we do not perceive it 
without Sight, but does S : ght give any direct apprehension 
of the hardness in it? No. Then why do I not run up 
against it, but carefully avoid it? Certainly from nothing 
Sight can tell me of it, but because w r e perceive the pillar 



Elements of Psychology. 101 

through the eye as suggestive of Touch. This is a case 
where what seems to be seen is to all intents and purposes 
touched. Now take the case of running up against the pillar 
by accident in the dark. In this case we perceive it directly 
by Touch, but indirectly we perceive it by Sight, for in 
touching the pillar a visual image of some kind arises, such 
as will always happen in the dark, whatever the object may 
be. When we see things in the light we imagine how they 
will ' feel/ i.e. to touch \ and when we touch anything in the 
dark we imagine how it will look. This theory is specially 
brought forward by Berkeley, who wanted to prove in par- 
ticular, that whenever we are seeing we are really in mind 
touching. We can, however, put the converse as well. We 
cannot separate Touch and Sight in Perception, but we can 
investigate them separately. 

Theory of Tactile Perception. 

Remember now that Touch presents an active and a passive 
phase, and that it is Active Touch that is of account for 
Perception. When we perceive objectively, it is by some 
form of Touch plus the coefficient of muscularity of which 
we are conscious. 

Qualities of Objects revealed by Active Touch. 

In the resultant, then, what belongs to the coefficient and 
what to the other factor ? Touch proper just gives us straight 
away the tactile qualities of things ; all differences of contact 
or pressure (intenser contact) are due to passive Touch. The 
coefficient of muscularity will cost us more trouble, because 
we can get Touch without it, but we cannot have it without 
Touch. However, there is one way in which the difference 
can be made clear, and it brings us to this statement, viz. : 



102 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

That Extension and Resistance are the fundamental con- 
ditions of object got by consciousness of activity. 

There are certain qualities of objects in the external world, 
such as Hard, Smooth, Heavy, Light, which are only known 
through skin sensibility. Nevertheless, Touch proper does 
not add much to our knowledge of objects as objects. Any 
object we can perceive by Touch is an object essentially in 
virtue of having two fundamental qualities, extension and 
resistance. It must have both of these; and no other 
quality we can speak of confers objectivity as do these. 
Now see how important is the part of that coefficient of 
muscularity. If we proceed to ask what we mean by the 
Extension or Resistance of an object, we can only say, 
psychologically, that it is apprehended by us through some 
activity of ours put forth, of which we are conscious, in the 
case of Extension as one kind of activity, in that of Resistance 
as another kind, but in both cases as muscular activity. As 
far as psychology is concerned, this statement, when proved, 
will go to the bottom of the matter, namely, how w r e come to 
perceive Space. What Space is, is a question for metaphysics. 

Modes of Muscular Activity in those Qualities, 

The question then for us now is, What are the two modes 
of muscular activity put forth respectively in the case of 
Extension and Resistance ? Muscular activity assumes two 
distinct modes in consciousness according as the activity is 
free, or impeded — relatively free, or relatively impeded. Now 
in putting forth the former I apprehend Extension ; in putting 
forth the latter I apprehend Resistance. Plainly then the 
muscular sense is a fundamental factor in these modes of 
apprehension, but always only a co-operating factor or co- 
efficient. There is always Touch as well. You cannot 



xv.] Elements of Psychology. 103 

possibly have activity more or less impeded without varying 
intensity of Touch. And what you have come to interpret as 
1 so far apart/ you learnt in the first instance to know as 
qualitatively distinguishable touches. I make not light then 
of the muscular factor, but I deny that it gives Extension or 
Resistance alone, as might be inferred from Professor Bain's 
exposition \ 

1 We have seen that muscular activity assumes two distinct modes 
in consciousness, according as the activity is free or impeded (called 
by Professor Bain consciousness of movement and dead strain). And 
we have maintained that Professor Bain has no right to call the former 
(consciousness of movement) a simple mode of conscious experience, 
since it is only by the assumption of consciousness of free activity that 
he can explain the perception of space, and by taking movement as such 
he begs the question, since consciousness of movement assumes space 
to move in. Feeling of movement as movement can be a primary kind 
of consciousness only on the Nativistic assumption. With these 
reservations Professor Bain's account of the matter pp 25-27) is very 
good. We must, however, make another reservation with regard to 
pp. 47-50. He there finds the difference between resistance and 
extension inexplicable in its fullness, without taking into account the 
different kinds of Touch involved. His account of these different kinds 
in the two modes of activity is very good, and it is true that, although 
the foundation of extension and resistance is given by Muscular Activity, 
yet the full explanation is only given when we take into account the 
different kinds of Touch involved. Yet on p. 27 Professor Bain attempts 
to give a full explanation of space without this, and of course does 
not succeed. Touch pure and simple will not give us ' object,' nor 
will Muscular Sense pure and simple : the two must interwork the 
one with the other. One factor, as we have seen, is more funda- 
mental, but both must be there Some kind of Passive Sense, if not 
that of Touch, would be absolutely necessary beside Muscular Sense 
to apprehend ' object ' ; if we were differently constituted, it might 
not be Touch but some other sense. 

When Professor Bain is treating of this subject he always puts Dead 
Strain before what we call Free Activity ; again, at p. 47, he treats first 
of Resistance, then of Extension of objects. Elsewhere, however, 
he makes Extension fundamental to perception of space, cf. p. 1, 



104 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

Consider the modes of Resistance admirably set forth by 
him 1 : — (i) Weight, Pressure, (ii) Hardness and Softness, (iii) 
Roughness and Smoothness. Why in this order ? In (i) the 
muscular factor is predominant ; in (iii) the tactile factor is 
predominant; in (ii) both are evenly balanced. But what 
does Hardness, say of this table, mean for me ? That the 
more I put forth energy the more rny sensation of touch is 
intensified. Or Roughness ? That I do not get, on occasion 
of lateral movement, the uniform sensation of touch yielded 
in Smoothness. Or Weight ? That I get varying intensifi- 
cation of muscular sense with a minimum of qualitative 
variety in touch. ' Pressure/ in the first instance, is intense 
contact, bare passive touch intensified, but it is by way of 
Active Touch that it is of account in Perception. I, pressing 
against the table, put forth activity — impeded activity. I 
must lift, I must press, to estimate Pressure thoroughly. 

The experiential explanation of Objective Perception by way of 

Extension. 

Now according to the theory of Extension, started originally 
in Germany and developed by Mr. Herbert Spencer and 
Piofessor Bain, touches, presenting these various modes of 
Resistance occurring and recurring in certain definite ways 
in connexion with activity of ours put forth, end by appearing, 

where he says that whatever has the attribute of Extension belongs 
to the external world. All things, it is true, which resist are extended, 
while many extended things do not give any appreciable resistance and 
some none at all (e. g. the vacuum in the receiver of an air-pump). Yet 
Prof. Bain always explains Resistance first ; and it is a peculiarity of 
him that, whereas he does not give his reasons, or show that he has 
much pondered over a point, he has nevertheless a wonderful knack 
of going right, as for instance in this case, the Tightness of which 
I explain in my theory. 
1 Op. cit., p. 47. 



xv.] Elements of Psychology. 105 

not as touches, but as elements in an extended order, which is 
apart from us and has its parts apart from one another. This 
doctrine contains a great deal of truth, and it claims to 
contain a psychological explanation of the Perception of 
objects as extended and resisting, i.e. an explanation in terms 
of sense. 

Nativistic view of Extension. 

Some schools deny that this is possible. Nativistic 
thinkers — Hamilton, e.g., and others, but most prominently 
Kant — maintained that Extension is a form of pure intuition, 
an aspect of things which mind, in perceiving, brings with it, 
native faculty not otherwise to be accounted for. Opposed 
to these are Experientialists, or Empiricists, who contend that 
a psychological explanation is possible through the data of 
muscular sense and touch as essential coefficients. Of these 
Professors Bain and Sully are representatives. 

Criticism of the Experientialists' Position, 

Now for a confession. I do not think a sufficient explana- 
tion can be given, if it start by explaining Extension. Pro- 
fessor Bain, e.g., explains Extension by supposing, first, that 
certain serial sensations of Touch come to appear as co- 
existing in time, and then that such co-existences come to be 
interpreted as the quality of Extension or spatial apartness. 
I.e. touches and series of touches repealable and reversible 
come to appear as Extension. Succession in time is turned 
into simultaneity. But simultaneity is not extension. This 
only accounts for touches becoming ordered as simultaneous 
though occurring as successive; and the Nativists say, and 
say rightly, that such explanation is a failure. ' This table is 
extended ' means * its two ends co-exist in space/ And to 
say that merely by a series of active touches had in reversible 



io6 Elements of Psychology. 

order we attain to this ordering in space, is too far a cry. 
Professor Bain establishes co-existence in time, but he does 
not establish co-existence in space. Dr. Ward too is dis- 
satisfied and sees the difficulty, while himself giving a 
psychological explanation which has the demerits of those of 
Professors Bain and Sully and the merits of neither. Both 
he and Professor James are of those who take a middle 
course, holding that Extension cannot be explained in terms 
of Touch and Muscular Sense, while yet they do not assume 
Extension as an inexplicable intuition. Dr. Ward assumes 
that sensations of Touch, in addition to their usually acknow- 
ledged properties, have a quality of 'extensity' (partly like 
Professor Bain's ' massiveness ') ; nevertheless his use of 
extensity amounts virtually to an assumption of the Nativistic 
doctrine. Professor James is in the same position as Dr. 
Ward. He simply assumes Extension from the first, being 
merely more careful than the older Nativists in his account 
of the modes of Extension. But he suggests to me Don 
Quixote tilting at windmills. 

By proceeding in a different order I hold that we can get a 
psychological explanation of Extension. 



For Lecture XVI read as for Lecture XV. 



LECTURE XVI. 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF OBJECTIVE PERCEPTION 

(continued). 

Psychological Explanation of the perception of Extension 
through the perception of Object. 

You cannot work out any such theory of extension as 
I have referred you to, except upon a prior basis. You 
never can explain how objects come to appear to you as 
extended until you have first explained how you come to 
perceive objects at all. This is what both Mr. Spencer and 
Professor Bain, in different degrees, attempt to do. The latter 
had already given the foundation of his explanation of object 
when discussing ' dead strain ' under Muscular Sense. There 
he committed himself to the position that we apprehend 
object as object mainly when our muscular activity is im- 
peded or resisted. But this was premature. Object as 
resisting cannot possibly be explained in terms of muscular 
sense only, because this varying ' strain ' cannot possibly be 
had without varying intensity of touch. It is at this stage, 
i.e. that of Perception, and not at that of Sensation and 
of one particular mode of Sensation, that the question of 
object as resisting should have been entered into. Professor 
Bain had taken up all those modes of Resistance as particular 
qualities of an object already got, but without giving an 
explanation of what object is in itself. He very properly 
distinguishes those modes of Perception, Hard and Soft, 



108 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

Rough and Smooth, &c, but sees them all in regard to 
an object which he supposes he has got, which he got in 
muscular sense, yet to which he has no right, because we 
have no strain in muscular sense without active touch. 
What, however, is implied in the whole of Professor Bain s 
explanation, though not expressly stated, is that you have 
to account psychologically for object as resisting before you 
proceed to account for object as extended. 

Why do I lay so much stress on rightly understanding 
Professor Bain here ? Because it is too usual for psychological 
writers to proceed on another line, to proceed on the line of 
explaining object first as extended, and only afterwards to 
take account of it as resisting. This is notably the case 
in Dr. Ward's article on ' Psychology/ There he devotes 
himself almost exclusively to Extension in his theory of 
Perception and only secondarily to Resistance. Professor 
Bain, on the other hand, though his principle is not explicit 
and his exposition is scattered, may be said to be representa- 
tive of those who declare that you should first account for 
object as resisting before you go on to account for object 
as extended. I have a very strong opinion that this order 
is a matter of first-rate psychological importance. 

Logical priority of Extension, Historical priority of Resistance. 

I still must warn you of an apparent difficulty in the case. 
There is a Certain ground for beginning with Extension 
of object before Resistance, because there is an object that 
extends but does not resist, namely, Space. Now if Extension 
is the quality of all objects, and if Resistance is only, the 
attribute of that extended object called Body, then there 
is apparently good ground for beginning with Extension. 
Extension is undoubtedly the universal attribute, the fun da- 



xvi.] Elements of Psychology. 109 

mental property, of all object — unless you say that Space is 
not object. From the psychological point of view Space 
is as much object as Body, and hence, I repeat, there seems 
to be good ground for beginning with extension of Object, 
and then for going on to resistance of Body in addition 
to extension, as to a secondary fact. 

Yet, while Extension appears the more fundamental fact 
in Perception, I believe that in the proper theory of Tactile 
Perception all depends on taking the reverse order. Logically, 
from the point of view of logical analysis, Extension, as an 
attribute of wider importance than Resistance for the ex- 
planation of the external world, should come first. But 
however that be in our developed consciousness, Resistance 
is historically prior. Historically, genetically, we apprehend 
Body as resisting before we apprehend Space as extended. 
We come to Space by the evacuation of Body rather than to 
Body by the filling in of Space. 

Object = Obstacle, i.e. subjectively = Resistance, and Resistance ultimately 
= Activity impeded with progressive intensification of Touch. 

Why is it that this is of account for us ? Psychology 
gives an account of the development of mind. It professes 
to trace how we come from certain simpler elements of 
experience to developed complex experience. To plunge 
into the question of Extension before saying anything of 
Body as resisting is really, in the guise of Psychology, to 
make a philosophical account, and not to follow the simpler 
psychological line that should be taken. Through the phase 
of resisting we arrive at any knowledge of object. Once 
have object as resisting, then the touches you get may appear, 
not merely subjective, but as definite facts in an external 
world. Net as extended have w r e first a perception of objects, 



no Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

but as a consciousness of being pulled up or impeded. The 
first suggestion of a ' Not-I ' is in as far as the ' I ' finds 
itself impeded. First of all, vague consciousness of activity, 
then of this being impeded : — such is the first start towards 
apprehension of an object. Now the Touch-factor is here 
too. Touch is intensified progressively with consciousness 
of impeded activity ; and these two are Resistance. Here 
the child gets a something it cannot get over, which is 
outside itself, and from which it gets a first faint suggestion 
of Not-self. Psychologically, the real meaning of Object 
is to us in the first instance obstacle. Object is interpretable 
in terms of obstacle. It is in the mode of obstacle that the 
child first has any kind of objective apprehension — begins 
to have an apprehension of other things. 

So far here is nothing that cannot be psychologically 
accounted for. Then, having posited for the child Obstacle 
as not-self, this fact, that it begins to move its hand over 
things, over objects that it has already got, in a series of touches 
in both orders — this begins to give it the ordering of objects 
as extended. It is upon a foundation of Object as Obstacle 
that alone we can arrive at a theory of Object as ' spread out/ 

Else I cannot get on ! This I consider is the right point of 
view. First explain objects as Resisting, then as Extended. 

Note that the German word Gegenstand shows the same 
meaning of ' object/ This import of object was clearly made 
out by some French writers of the eighteenth century called 
Ideologists, one of whom was Destutt de Tracy, a Scotchman 
by descent, who most of all influenced the Scottish philo- 
sopher Dr. Thomas Brown. Brown first in this country saw 
the import of muscular sense as of account for Perception. 
Professor Bain is thus, through Thomas Brown, connected 
with Destutt de Tracy. 



xvi.] Elements of Psychology. in 

Do not think that I have thus far completely accounted 
for our knowledge of an Object. There is vastly more 
in it than can be included in mere Tactile Perception — nay, 
than in Psychology itself. It is a metaphysical question. 
We think of an object as something having being for itself 
as ' being there/ To account for Object as we know it 
is one of the deepest metaphysical problems. Yet it lies 
so near our present sphere that I shall deal with it in my 
course of General Philosophy. For the present we get 
Objective Perception, i. e. how objects come to appear so 
to us, in muscular activity put forth and resisted. If Object 
is for us first Resistance, we analyse Resistance and find 

ACTIVITY SO STOPPED THAT WE GET INTENSIFICATION OF 
TOUCH. 



For Lecture XVII read: — 

G. C. Robertson, Mind, i, 145 ; or Philosophical Remains, p. 133. 

For difficulties raised in connexion with visual perception consult 
James, Principles of Psychology , and Ladd, Physiological Psychology. 



LECTURE XVII. 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF OBJECTIVE PERCEPTION 

(continued). 
Recapitulation. 

To resume: — We have begun with Objective Perception 
on the basis of active touch, or as involving touch on 
occasion of muscular activity. We can deal with the question 
of External Perception only at the stage of touch, because 
w r e have no developed muscular activity except in connexion 
with organs of touch. Of course we have it also in con- 
nexion with visual organs, but we keep these back just now, 
because we can have Tactile Perception without Visual 
Perception, as in persons born blind. Even with regard to 
these there is contention, that those who cannot see, do not 
arrive at a proper comprehension of the external world. 
More of this later on. The second point on which I laid 
stress was that we have to account in terms of Active Touch 
for a perception of objects as extended. The perception of 
Extension is the real crux of the whole question. It is the 
real and serious difficulty in psychology, to account for the 
appearance of objects as extended; so much so, that by 
some it is put in the first place. But it is not a difficulty 
which it is well directly to face. It should be faced 
secondarily. We can account for the extension of objects if 






Elements of Psychology. 113 

we first psychologically explain the perception of object as 
such, without reference to its extension — the perception of 
object as 'obstacle/ This done, we are then able to explain, 
with Professor Bain, how touches, occurring to us in a serial 
order, an order which admits of indefinite repetition and 
which is also reversible, end by appearing as surfaces spread 
out. I say, these processes are effective enough in the 
genesis of Extension, if we have already something in the 
way of object which we interpret as obstacle to activity of 
ours; not a definite perception of body, for that would be 
assuming Extension, but some vague idea of activity some- 
how resisted. But unless we have begun with this con- 
ception of object then all these processes, serial, repeatable, 
reversible, go on, as we say, in the air, and yield nothing 
effective for our purpose. The Experientialist theory of 
Extension can be maintained only if urged along with the 
fundamental experience of not-self got in Resistance. The 
order in which we acquire knowledge of Body and Space 
is, (1) we have a perception of Body as resisting, (2) we 
arrive at Space by taking away Body as resisting. 

The first < Obstacle: 

This ordering or placing of touches according to quali- 
tative difference does not take place in the child's dawning 
perception of object with any set of touches. I have not 
the slightest doubt that the first object that we become aware 
of as resisting, and at the same time spread out, is our own 
body. Of course the child from the very beginning sees 
as well as touches, but I am putting aside vision for the 
present, and suppose that we have a child, at first unable 
to discern a difference between subject and object, beginning 
to acquire objective experience by way of touch. And I say 

1 



H4 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

— and our psychological explanation should take account of 
this, which is too much overlooked in the books, even by Pro- 
fessor Bain — that the first object it would come to apprehend 
vaguely is not any other body, but its own. That one 
object it has always with it; other objects come and go, 
but it has always the power of touching its own body and 
thus of finding the activity of its own hand impeded. Per- 
ception of an object-world begins really and strictly with the 
lips in first receiving nourishment, whether our child sees or 
not. But there is this special feature in its tactile experience 
of its own body, that whereas in touching another body it has 
an intensification of touch on the hand through which it is 
exerting pressure, in pressing the hand against its own face 
it gets, in connexion with the activity put forth and resisted, 
an intensification of two touches : it both touches and is 
touched. This gives peculiar and better data for the 
ordering of touch-sensations. If, as we have reason to 
suppose, there is a qualitative difference of touch in every 
part of the body, then the child cannot but have its attention 
drawn to this, that through the fingers it has a variety of 
touches according to the part touched, both by way of the 
latter and also of the part that touches. Thus it is helped 
to finding its body as extended in this double way of learning 
to discriminate different parts, a way in which it is not 
helped when touching anything else. Every particular part 
of the body comes for it thus to have a definite spatial 
relation to every other part through the medium of that 
organ which is the effective tactile instrument, the hand. 
Every part of the body comes to be related to the hand, 
since the hand must be moved in a certain way, exerted to 
a certain extent, to get each peculiar touch 1 . And thus 
1 Whereas the whole of the skin is the ' seat ' of Touch-sensation, 



XVIL] Elements of Psychology. 115 

every part of the body becomes spatially referred to every 
other part. The qualitative differences of touch at different 
parts come to be suggested in consciousness by how much 
activity must be put forth to touch that part ; and again, the 
activity that a child should put forth is suggested by the 
kind of touch it has. 

How we get Tactile Distance as distinct from Tactile Doubleness. 

Hence we can understand, and apart from this we cannot 
explain, what follows: — (1) If I am touched at two parts of 
my body by two compass points, my consciousness is actually, 
not of mere doubleness, but of two touches as so far apart. 
How does this happen? Some say, through an original 
endowment, it not being explicable as a development of per- 
ception. I believe that it is the result of development, and 
that it comes to pass exactly on the ground I have mentioned, 
viz. that touches differing simply in quality come to be 
connected with different activities of the hand. Surely this 
is a more scientific theory than that other assumption. 

(2) There is one case of a somewhat abnormal character 
which seems to be at variance with the above conclusion. 
How is it that, if the second finger be crossed over the first, 
we have a sensation, if an object be placed between them, 
not of points apart but of doubleness^ of two objects ? Aristotle 
noticed this peculiarity and tried to explain it, but without 
success. If a marble be felt carefully with those two fingers 
crossed, and with the eyes shut, the second finger at the top, 
the first underneath, it will be discovered that though this is 
so, we ascribe what the first finger feels to the top position 
in space, and what the second finger feels, which is really 
atop, to the lower place in space. But if every touch has 

the hand is the * organ* of Touch- perception. 'Seat' should be 
used in connexion with Sensation, ' organ ' with Perception. 

I 2 



n6 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

come to have a definite spatial character, the phenomenon 
is explained. Touches in themselves only qualitatively 
different, have come to be associated with different points in 
space from the amount and kind of activity put forth 
consciously. Thus we see that consciousness of space arises 
neither from consciousness of activity, nor from touch, but 
from both as coefficients. 

How we come to acquire Passive Apprehension of Space. 

We have maintained that to apprehend objects in space, 
we have been active. Extension has no other meaning 
psychologically but activity. Need there be activity ? Let me 
place my palm on the table in the dark. Again, let me rest 
the back of my hand on the table, and let an object be laid 
on it. I should know both table and object as extended, 
without moving over either repeatedly, reversing the movement, 
although I should not know fully what their properties were. 
But how should I know them as extended ? Because I know 
my own skin, my own hand, to be extended. There is no 
accounting otherwise for this passive apprehension of space. 
Our bodies are a standard or measure by which we measure 
other objects. What the carpenter does with his foot-rule we 
do with our hand, or with our body known to us through 
our hand. I know the size of my watch when put on my 
forehead, because I know of the extension of my brow. 
Because our own skin is the first occasion of free activity, 
exploring and resisted, every part of the body has come to 
have its own 'local sign,' its own suggestion of locality 
developed upon a basis of qualitative difference of touch 
in conjunction with activity put forth. And thus it comes 
that we know bodies as extended, because we know our own 
body as extended. 



xvil] Elements of Psychology. 117 

Apprehension of Solidity. 

The maximum of Touch-perception is reached in the 
perception of object as solid, i. e. when we know it as resist- 
ing in all three dimensions of space — whether three only, or 
more than three, psychology does not undertake to prove. 
The first part of a child's body which perceives solidity is its 
lips. They are the part first used, and used most often ; 
they are a very sensitive part and can at all times be pressed 
together and separated. Through this mobility and tactilky, 
neither of which qualities is of any use without the other, it 
is on the line of the lips that the first development of 
object takes place. But it is more especially the opposability 
of our more effective organs of touch, the thumb to the 
other fingers, and one hand to the other, which seek to 
meet and cannot, that gives us perception of solidity. 
Pressure of one palm on this book gives me resistance; 
placing of it on the book (by which I get many touches) 
gives me Extension; but when I try to bring my two hands 
together around it and cannot succeed, then I learn that it 
has Solidity — I gain a notion of an object as having Figure. 
For a larger object the opposable arms convey the same 
lesson. Solidity is, when analysed, intensified touch on 
occasion of the impeded activity of opposable organs. We do 
not need to learn it by the process of actually moving the 
touching surface in each dimension. 



For Lecture XVIII read : — 
Bain, pp. 188-197. 
Read also Hoffding on * Apprehension of Time,' V, C, §§ 1-4. 



LECTURE XVIII. 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF VISUAL PERCEPTION. 

Visual Perception. 

We now go on to consider Sight alone in the same way 
as we have considered Touch, and we shall find Sight 
indirectly, i.e. through Touch, to be so important, that it 
almost comes to be synonymous with the term Perception, 
for Sight is the sense of senses. It has all the attributes of 
muscular control that we find in Touch, and it is as highly 
specialised as Hearing is. Nevertheless its organ is less 
open to investigation than the hand and lips, though more 
so than that of Hearing. 

We must carefully distinguish between Sight as Sensation 
and Sight as an organ of Perception. We are now going to 
consider it as the latter, but let me only impress this point 
about it as the former :— To account for the sensation of 
Sight it is enough, on the physiological side, to take into 
consideration the sensitive surface in the eye and its nerve- 
communication with the brain, i.e. how it is that the retina 
is liable to be stimulated and to propagate its disturbance. 
We need not go further into the details of the structure and 
functioning of the eye. But these details become important 
and require attention when we go on to deal with the eye as 
an organ of Perception. For us now the question is, How 



Elements of Psychology. 119 

is the retina made capable of receiving optical images ? In 
what way is the eye an optical instrument? Let us divide 
our inquiry into three points : — 

1. The eye as an organ of Perception. 

2. What the eye is fitted to give us in the way of 
Perception. 

3. (a) What the eye in Perception does of itself, and 
(&) what it does in conjunction with the other organs of 
Perception. 

1. The Eye as an Organ of Perception. 

The eye is both a sensitive and a mobile organ. It is no 
longer sufficient to say that the eye is an organ in which the 
nerve is affected by light through the retina, but we must 
now note that the retina is differently affected by light at 
different parts and in a definite fashion. There must be 
produced in the eye on the retina a definite optical image 
according to the laws of optics before the brain can be 
affected so as to perceive an object. And the eye is organised 
accordingly. Within the cornea is the iris acting as a stop 
to cut off all useless rays. Within this is the crystalline lens 
of highly refracting power, by which those rays not stopped 
by the iris are brought to a definite focus on the retina, 
forming a definite image on it. 

Of this image we are not in the least conscious ; we do 
not see it) nor should we see it were it re-formed in the 
brain. What we see is a mental constructio?i which comes to 
pass under those physical conditions. The retinal image is 
only a condition of our seeing. We see by way o/it, not it. 
More of this later on. We have not yet done with conditions. 

The optical image being an indispensable condition to 
Visual Perception, and the retina being differently affected at 



120 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

different parts, our aim is to get as definite an image as 
possible. At a certain part of the retina called the yellow 
spot {lutea macula), which is the most sensitive surface, we 
get the maximum of definiteness. And we get this maximum 
of definiteness in our image by bringing certain muscular 
activities into play, some internal, viz. those of the ciliary 
muscle, and some external, viz. those of the six pairs of 
muscles attached to the eyeballs. 

Parallel Conditions in the Organs of Tactile and Visual Perception. 

Thus the yellow spot bears the same relation to the other 
parts of the retina as the hand to the other parts of the skin. 
The whole retina is the seat of the Sense of Sight just as 
the whole skin is the seat of the Sense of Touch. But as the 
hand is the effective organ 1 of Tactile Perception, so the 
yellow spot is the effective organ of Visual Perception. And 
the sensitiveness of both is rendered effective through the 
mobility of both. The fact that we can bring the hand to 
any other part of this sensitiveness establishes an equation 
between the sensitiveness of the skin and the maximum 
sensitiveness of the hand, bringing them, so to speak, to 
the same denominator. So with the eye. The action of the 
external muscles is to bring impressions on to the yellow 
spot which would otherwise fall on the peripheral parts of 
the retina, by directing the yellow spot to the visual ' field/ 
By saying, ' I am looking/ I mean that the yellow spot has 
taken a certain direction. We do not get anything like this 
varying sensitiveness increasing to a maximum in Hearing or 

1 I sa3>- ' effective organ,' since, if maximum of sensitiveness be 
alone considered, and not knowledge of the external world, the tip 
of the tongue rather than the hand is to be compared with the yellow 
spot. 



xviii.] Elements of Psychology. 121 

the other senses. In hearing there is a great range of 
qualitative difference, but no muscular arrangement in the 
ear to cause such an equation to be established between one 
part of the ear and another. 

In the mobility of the crystalline lens the eye has a peculiar 
and special organ for purposes of Perception over and above 
anything we find in the organisation of Touch. 

Visual Perception, then, involves Active Sight, and Active 
Sight, as we have seen, is an involution of light-sensation 
with a coefficient of Muscular Sense. Let us look more 
closely at this muscular activity. 

Muscular Action interior to the Eye. Adjustment of the Single Eye. 

It is only parallel rays which are naturally focussed on the 
retina by the crystalline lens, but this lens, being elastic, has 
the power (through the contraction of the ciliary muscle, 
which thus renders it more convex on its outer surface) of 
bringing to a focus rays which are not parallel but divergent, 
i.e. which come from an object within a certain distance, viz. 
21 feet, on to the retina. This alteration is called Adjust- 
ment or Adaptation of the single eye for near vision. This 
adjustment is effected by muscular activity of which we are 
clearly conscious. 

Muscular Action exterior to the Eye. Convergence, 

But we have two eyes, as we have two hands. Each is 
moved by six muscles attached to its external surface, and by 
means of these the two eyes co-operate in certain definite 
ways which are subservient to the process of Perception. 
Thus the axes of the eyes are parallel (the axis being a line 
passing through the centre of the pupil to the yellow spot), 
and parallel movement of the eyes is preserved by the external 



122 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

muscles in seeing distant objects, these throwing like images 
into each eye. This parallel movement is called the Con- 
sensuous Movement of the eyes, and is only departed from by 
the convergence of the axes for near and middle vision. 
Nearer objects throw different images into each eye, and to 
correct this, the muscles effect a convergence of each axis, 
so that the two yellow spots are brought to bear on the same 
part of the visual field. The axes cannot be made to diverge 1 . 
And this process of convergence is termed Binocular Ac- 
commodation. Binocular difference is the most important 
factor in perception of Volume. It is the basis of stereo- 
scopic vision. To see objects as single, it has to be 
overcome. 

Perception and the l Blind Spot.' 

Note that at one part of the retina we are not sensitive at 
all, viz. at the ' blind spot/ or entrance of the optic nerve in 
the retina. Here there are fibres, but no periphery. Why 
then does it not tell on vision as a black spot ? Because 
(i) the yellow spot is not in the same place in each eye; 
(2) finding (by Touch) that objects are continuous, we come 
to interpret them so ; and the constant flickering of the eye 
helps us. But enough of conditions. 

2. Nature of Visual Perception, 

We shall now consider for what kinds of perception these 
are the conditions. The eye, as a bare sense-organ, gives 
us perception of Light and Colour, gifts peculiarly its own. 

1 There are a few people who can, while keeping one eye fixed, 
cause the axis of the other to diverge ; but this is rare. In the case 
of persons born with a squint, whether convergent or divergent, it 
must be remembered that for them this convergence or divergence is 
parallelism. 



xviii,] Elements of Psychology. 123 

But do these effects come before us in such a way that they 
can be worked up into anything we can call Perception? 
We are, of course, now supposing the case of a man unable 
to get Perception otherwise. The answer is, that he could 
get a kind of objective Perception. Let us go back for 
a moment to Active Touch. We saw that it gave us 
knowledge of Resistance, i. e. ' Dead Strain ' accompanied by 
intensification of Passive Touch. Now in the case of Sight, 
although we have the sense of strain through the ciliary and 
external muscles, yet we do not get with it progressive 
intensification of passive touch, i.e. pressure, nor a corre- 
sponding intensification of light at all comparable to that of 
pressure experienced in Touch. The eye by itself then 
could not give us Resistance. All it can do is to lead us to 
appreciate it through other senses. If a lump of butter and 
a piece of wood are divided, we say we can see that the 
former is easily cut, and not the latter. But the eye in both 
cases only suggests what we have in the first instance learnt 
to know through Touch. 

W T hereas, however, the eye gives us no knowledge of 
Resistance, it has the means of giving us apprehension of 
Extension, i.e. a succession of repeatable and reversible 
sensations. In seeing we certainly get a series of sense- 
impressions which we can repeat, reverse, or have in any 
order we please ; we certainly have a means of appreciating 
dimensions in space — but only two dimensions directly, viz. 
Linear and Superficial Extension. Through the eye we 
can only indirectly arrive at the apprehension of the third 
dimension, Solidity. The eye can sweep over a field, but it 
is not organised like the hand ; it cannot run out and in, go 
round corners and grasp things ; it can only move in its own 
plane. The perception of the third dimension is much more 



124 Elements of Psychology. 

complex than that of the other two, and it is the solution of 
the question as to how we come to a knowledge of solidity 
which gave rise to the Berkeleian Theory of Vision. In short, 
the eye is not fitted to gi'. e us the means of perceiving 
Resistance. That can only be got through Active Touch. 
But it is eminently fitted to give us series of successive 
impressions converted to simultaneous impressions, as well 
as of impressions originally simultaneous. Hence it is fitted 
to develop an exte?ided order, when once it has borrowed an 
ohjective basis. The child who sees can have an apprehension 
of an extended world such as the child who merely touches 
never can. Nevertheless the Extension arrived at by way of 
Touch and by Sight on a basis of Touch is so different from 
that which might be obtained by way of Sight only, that an 
equation is not to be established between them. 
So much then the eye can and cannot do. 



For Lecture XIX read as for Lecture XVIII. 

Clark Murray (A Handbook of Psychology, London, 1885) has a very 
good chapter on Visual Perception. 



LECTURE XIX. 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF VISUAL PERCEPTION 

(continued). 
3. Actual Import of Sight for Perception ; (a) taken in isolation. 

If the eye then can build but not found, we can only 
estimate what it actually does for us in Visual Perception in 
connexion with its basis. This has been admitted by most — 
though questioned by some especially of late years — ever 
since Berkeley laid down, in 1709, that what we call vision 
is the work of the eye as interpretable in terms of Touch. He 
errs only by merely implying, and not explicitly sifting out, 
Active Sense. 'In terms of Active Touch/ or 'of Touch 
with the coefficient of Muscular Sense to transform it? is what 
we now should substitute. Sight is an implicit touching. 
There is nothing that seems to us more obvious, clear, and 
distinct than that the eye by itself is pre-eminently the organ 
of Perception. I sit here aware of the whole room and its 
contents without doing anything except keeping my eyes 
open. There are some things of which I apparently have 
nothing but visual perception, e.g. the sky, clouds, heavenly 
bodies. And there is not the slghtest doubt that the eye in 
the end does sum up all perceptive ability into itself, so that 
seeing or vision really, in the end, amounts to perceiving. 
Nay, and to more than this. When I wish to say, ' I under- 
stand this/ I say, ' I see this is so/ The function of sight in 



126 Elements of Psychology. [Lect- 

Perception is enormous. And yet, except the bare fact of 
sensations of colour, or rather of light, there is nothing that 
the eye does exclusively. 

(b) Taken in conjunction with other Organs of Perception. 

If it can do nothing exclusively, what is there that helps it ? 
We have seen that this is Active Touch. Suppose I put on 
the table a large and a small worsted ball and ask which 
is the heavier, the reply is at once, the larger. But we do 
not see this, we infer it. Weight is inferred in this case from 
size, but weight is a result of Active Touch. It may be a 
wrong inference. A little lump of lead may be hidden in 
the smaller ball, in which case we have to bring our inference 
to the test of Active Touch. The indirectness of Vision leads 
to inaccuracies. 

We see too that the two orders of Extension, those of 
Touch and of Sight, do not always coincide. The one is 
constant, the other ever varying. A story never told twice in 
the same way cannot be true. The remark that a man may 
be uniform in his statements and yet wrong, but that he cannot 
vary and always be right, applies to Touch and Sight. In 
the case of Touch the Extension of an object gives us certain 
fixed data. We get something having constancy and uni- 
formity. We either have it or have it not, and when we have 
it, we have it in a constant way. But in Visual Extension 
we get every possible kind of report of the ' same object/ 
For example, I * feel ' my watch with an approximately con- 
stant result, w r herever I am and whether I can see it or not. 
But in seeing my w r atch as extended, I get the most varying 
visions of it. The first story, that of Touch, may be true ; 
the second story, or rather set of stories, cannot all be 
true. An apprehension of Extension so variable and so 



xix.] Elements of Psychology. 127 

peculiar needs to be brought into connexion with the other 
order of Extension. The inconstant must be reduced to the 
constant. And Seer and Toucher being one, we cannot but 
do so, interpreting Sight by Touch. For there is no common 
denominator to which we may reduce both. Touch gives us 
our only psychological Absolute ; to it Sight is merely 
relative ; by it we learn the relatively real qualities of things. 
Sight gives us suggestions for our interpretation; Touch 
gives us that which, in the way of Sense, is final, and beyond 
which we cannot go. Real magnitude as distinct from 
apparent magnitude is Tangible magniiude. Real Extension 
is Tangible Extension. The real magnitude of the earth is 
measured not by Sight, but by the number of steps of touching 
feet. The sun only looks like a plate to us because we in- 
terpret its size according to the scale of things we can actually 
touch. The apparent size of the sun to us is its size relative 
to the whole vault of heaven. The size of that vault for us 
depends upon the amount of the earth's surface visible to 
us at the time. And the size of this visible portion of 
the earth's surface is got in relation to things we can touch 
and walk round. Hence we see that even the ridiculous 
conclusion we come to in the case of the sun is got through 
the interpretation of Touch. However remote the reference 
may be to Touch, eye-experience is always finally to be 
expressed in terms of Active Touch. 

Sight as extending Objective Perception on a Base-line of Touch. 

Sight then is our really effective means of Objective Percep- 
tion, since it enables us not only to perceive by way of 
inference so much of what we are directly informed through 
other senses, but also to perceive far more than other senses 
could reveal to us. I am not here referring to things as 



128 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

having colour or lustre ; in revealing a certain quality in objects 
Sight is only on a level with the other senses. My point 
is, that by means of colour and light, Sight makes us aware 
of objects we should otherwise be unable to perceive at 
all, e.g. the stars, the tops of inaccessible mountains, &c. 
And yet all this work it does on a base-line of Touch. 
There is nothing in Sight as such that can account for our 
perception of the distance of objects. Berkeley's theory, 
according to some psychologists, turns on the perception of 
the third dimension as Distance, it being generally assumed 
that there is no difficulty in getting a perception of space in 
two dimensions by the eye, because the retina itself is an 
extended object. But the theory of vision applies to linear 
and superficial dimension as well as to the third, the only 
difference being that in the third dimension the data are more 
complex, both eyes co-operating to give those visual 'marks' 
or 'signs/ i.e. facts of conscious experience obtained through 
the eyes when muscularly active, which we interpret in 
terms of active touch. The Berkeleian theory is but a 
scientific statement of the common proverbial expression, 
' Seeing is believing, but touch is the real thing/ Look at 
the pillar before us. Certainly when we look at it we 
believe it to be there, but we do not come fully to know of 
it as a real existence until we touch it. It might be ' Pepper's 
ghost/ 

The Complexity of Visual Perception. 

Seeing, in fact, is a very complex act. In Sight we see 
things of a size which Sight by itself does nothing to account 
for. Why do we see this table of the size it is ? We see it of 
the size we have grown to regard it of by Touch. It must be 
remembered that for such an object to throw 7 an image on the 



xix.] Elements of .Psychology. 129 

retina, this image must be immensely reduced, and though 
the retinal image does not in the least enter into our con- 
sciousness, but is only a physical concomitant, yet it is hardly 
conceivable that, in getting smaller and smaller as the 
object recedes, it should have for its mental concomitant the 
consciousness of a relatively constant extension. The real 
problem of Visual Perception is, How does the eye work in 
relation to Touch ? 

Two Special Problems of Visual Perception. 

Much thought has been wasted on such specific problems 
cf vision as — (a) Why do we see objects upright when the 
image on the retina is upside down? {b) Why with two eyes 
do we see objects as single ? 

(a) Objects seen as upright with Inverted Retinal Image. 

We doril see the image. What we see is an object 
outside of us, and that object as such is neither a retinal nor 
a cerebral image, but a mental construction had on occasion 
of certain optical and nervous processes, and which in calling 
'upright* we describe in language not got through ocular 
experience but through Active Touch. By ' the top ' of a 
thing we mean that part we must lift the hand to reach. 
In fact, we come to see that this apparent paradox is the 
truth : If the image were not upside down we should not see 
the object the right zvay up. For in looking up to the top 
of the pillar our object is to bring the image of the top on 
to the lutea macula, and as the eye is globular, the raising of 
the cornea in front depresses the lutea macula at the back. 
So that, in fact, if the rays did not cross as they do (thus 
inverting the image), the raising of the iris would bring 
the lutea macula opposite the rays from the bottom of the 

K 



130 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

pillar, and we should get two contradictory impressions from 
Touch and Sight. To look at the top of the pillar we should 
have to perform a 'downward' muscular movement of the 
eyeball, while to touch the top we should have to perform 
an ' upward ' movement of the hand. For the two series of 
data to correspond, the image must be upside down. 

(b) Objects seen as Single with Binocular Vision. 

This question too can only be solved in relation to Touch. 
Why do I not perceive two books, when holding one between 
my two hands ? Because of the continuity of Touches when 
I turn the book over and over. But as a matter of fact we 
do see all objects double except the one which we are actually 
' fixating/ and of that we unify the two images in virtue of 
the oneness established through Touch. For what is this 
' doubleness ' ? Something which Touch shows us as having 
solidarity. The question should rather be, Why should we 
see a thing as double which is single so long as the sensa- 
tions that we get are regular and orderly ? Professor Bain 
says (p. 192) that we see an object mainly with one eye and 
fill up our vision with the other. But most do not do so. 
We do see most things double. Let the two forefingers be 
held up one behind the other. If one be fixated the other is 
seen double. This duality is a fact of binocular difference 
experienced by us in the case of all objects that do not throw 
the image exclusively on to the lutea macula. Under the 
guidance of Touch we can to a certain extent unify this 
difference. We cannot, it is true, touch the sun which we 
see as single, but we have come to learn the oneness of an 
object where Touch is possible ; all other objects are seen as 
single indirectly. 

Binocular difference, however, is the basis of our getting 



xix.] Elements of Psychology. 131 

the idea of Solidity or Volume ' through Sight, as is shown in 
the stereoscope. It is only when objects, because of their 
extreme distance, send parallel rays to the eye so as to cast 
the same image on both retinae, that we lose sight of them 
as solid and can represent them on a flat canvas without 
shading. We never have a full sense of Volume except in 
the case of objects which throw a different image on each 
retina. The difference does not explain Volume, but it 
gives us additional visual marks to those obtained by one 
eye only, which we can interpret by reference to Touch. 



For Lecture XX read Hoffding, V, B, §§ 2 6 ; B, §§ 2, 3. 



1 l Volume' is in Visual Perception a better term than ' Solidity.' 
The latter is connected with Active Touch resisted, and cannot be 
referred to Sight in which we do not experience resistance. 



K 2 



LECTURE XX. 

MENTAL CONSTRUCTION. REPRESENTATIVE IMAGINATION. 

Recapitulation. 
We have seen that Visual Perception is essentially a com- 
plex experience, or mental construction involving data of 
Active Sight, and reference of those data to Active Touch. 
Vision is emphatically no mere passive sense ; it can never 
be explained without reference to the active factor. But 
with all allowance made for what Active Sight can do, it 
must ultimately be referred to Active Touch. The eye seems 
to do all the work, but actually it gives merely marks which 
may be interpreted as percepts of Active Touch. Every 
sight-percept is uliimately touch-perception. Real, as distinct 
from visual, objects have always reference to Active Touch. 
Touch gives the base of the perception, and Sight the occasion, 
aggrandising moreover and extending Objective Perception, 
and that in conformity with certain laws of Intellection, 
whereof more presently. Hitherto we have noticed only the 
Sense-elements in vision, which constitute really a very 
difficult question. 

Other Sense- perception. 

Our perception of objects is of objects as tangible and 
visible, and of objects as tangible when visible. The other 
senses come, in different degrees of value for Perception, to 
fill in that which we perceive through Touch and* Sight ; 



Elements of Psychology, 133 

e.g. we project the conscious experience of a ringing sound 
into a swinging bell, and that of an odour into a rose, and 
that of a taste into a lump of sugar. Sonorous, odorous, 
sapid objects are in the first instance tangible objects. 
We do not put organic sensations outside of us, because 
they are not subject to the action of Touch and Sight. 
We have a certain apprehension of Direction through 
Hearing, but it is most rudimentary, and it would be hardly 
possible for a blindfolded person, keeping quite still, to say 
with any precision where such a sound as the click of two 
pence takes place, however possible it might be in the case 
of a very definite sound. In Smell, too, the ' sense ' of 
Direction is very low, although, owing to the fact that the 
organ is situated at one side of the body only, it is perhaps 
better than in Hearing. In Taste, as such, we have no objective 
perception at all : it is the tangible presence of the object in 
the mouth that informs us. We must touch before we taste. 

But that these facts hold for the lower animals I do not assert. 
Smell in particular has an objective value for quadrupeds 
that it has not for us. To dogs smells are rather intellective 
than emotional. Why ? They cannot afford to turn up their 
noses at smells as we can. Our sense-world is based upon 
the Hand ; theirs is a universe of Smells. Animals are 
thrown back on smell or other sense, to the extent to which 
they have not Active Touch to fall back upon. Monkeys 
come nearer to us. 

Let students think over all these points and they will get 
very far in a Theory of the Sensible World. 

Perception in its 'Formal' Aspect, as Intellectual Construction. 

So far then for Sensation and Percept. A percept is an 
intellectual construction on occasion of sense together with 



134 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

present consciousness of activity exerted. Complex as it is, 
the work of intellectual construction is done so early in life, 
that it has come to appear very simple. We are not as a rule 
conscious of the process of abstraction which we perform on 
our complex of present sensations, when as a resultant thereof 
we get an auditory, a visual, or other perception. A percept 
in fact is only gradually built up, and it is not likely that 
a child of two hours old sees ' a pillar ' as we are apt to 
imagine that it does. What it eventually comes to see, what 
popular opinion sees, in the pillar is something quite out of 
relation to, and disiinct from, the seeing individual. In 
physical science it is something that supports the roof. But 
for Psychology it is only a Percept, i.e. not a thing perceived, 
but a thing perceived : — a combination of so much Active 
Touch and Active Sight, &c, held together by certain laws of 
Intellection. This is all it is from a subjective point of view. 
Whether a pillar is really there or not, independently of my 
sense-perception, is a metaphysical question. For us at 
present the pillar, or any percept, is a subjective construction, 
on the base of which further constructions take place, wherein 
their chief mental value for us lies. Them we must proceed 
to consider, if we wish to make clear what are those laws of 
Intellection involved in the formation of percepts. 

Up to this time in dealing with percept, I have only been 
explaining its ' material ' elements as opposed to its ' formal ' 
aspects. Taking ' matter ' and ' form ' as two aspects of 
Object, we have been concerned with the former only. By 
formal aspect I mean dealing with the percept as an in- 
tellectual product, or intellectual construction out of sensations, 
which form the ■ matter ' of the percept. Now if the business 
of science is to explain, psychology must indicate the laws 
according to which those constructions come to pass. 



xx.] Elements of Psychology. 135 

Representative Imagination. 

The next intellectual fact or product or construction that 
we have to deal with, to throw light on the percept, is some- 
thing that we call c image/ and which we must now use in its 
strict psychological sense, not as meaning a certain change 
which takes place in the retina, which is a physical or physio- 
logical fact, nor a statue, but a percept reproduced in con- 
sciousness, or had over again in re-presentative form, i.e. 
without accompanying presentative form. And as Perception 
is the process of the product, Percept, so Imagination, i.e. 
Re-presentative Imagination, is the process of the product, 
Image. Re-presentation in consciousness is the same as 
what is popularly called Memory. Memory is re-presentative 
imagination of a definite kind, involving an assurance that 
the experience did really previously happen to me. How 
memory can have come to assume this character is a difficult 
problem, and we shall not here attempt to solve it. Memory 
under the aspect of Reminiscence or Recollection implies 
a distinct voluntary effort brought to bear on the associated 
re-presentations of our experience. 

Image is a better term than ' idea/ as being psychologically 
less ambiguous. ' Idea ' and ' ideal ' play so great a part in 
philosophy from Plato till now, that although most English 
psychologists have by idea meant ' representative image/ it 
may bear the wider sense of mental fact, of anything we can 
take account of in consciousness. Thus we find even 6 ideas 
of sense ' in Berkeley. And Locke used it for representation 
plus sensation, or mental state generally. This being so, 
it is well not to employ it in the specific sense of l image/ lest 
ambiguity result. Professor Bain never uses ' image ' as I do. 
In his Introduction he apparently uses ' idea ' for ' image/ 
He would not use { idea ' for ' percept/ yet he would not 



136 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

scruple to use ' idea ' for • concept/ It is also to be 
regretted that in his rare use of the word Imagination, he 
always follows the popular, not the psychological, sense. 
From * idea ' English psychologists, notably J. S. Mill, have 
formed ' Ideation/ as Imagination corresponds to ' image/ 

The terms Re-percept and Re-perception have lately 
been coined, constituting unexceptionable substitutes for 
Image and Representative Imagination. Intellectual con- 
sciou>ness is much more made up of re-percepts than of 
percepts. As our past experience is greater than our present, 
so Representative Imagination is greater than Perception. 

Perception and Re-presentation. 

1 Presentative ' is what is directly, immediately before con- 
sciousness. This pillar involves for me Presentation. I leave 
the room. Can the pillar still come into my consciousness? 
Yes, in re-presentative form. But is the pillar aught besides 
Presentative to me at this moment ? Yes, my visual presen- 
tation of it involves re-presentation of certain tactile expe- 
riences. Perception therefore has been called Presentative- 
representative (Spencer). 

Can we have purely presentative experience ? None that 
we can take account of. We may seem to be approaching 
the presentative elements pure and simple in consciousness, 
but they ever elude our grasp. The colour of an object, e. g., 
appears differently to a child from what it does to me ; what 
I see depends upon the interpretation put upon it by my past 
experience ; indeed, I experience it by assimilating it to past 
experience. The notion is for us a limit in a mathematical 
sense, not an actual fact of Perception. Even in organic 
sensations we refer them to our inside or to the skin. 

It is easier to get at the image than at the percept, since it 



xx.] Elements of Psychology. 137 

is only the percept had over again. Take e.g. 'the dome of the 
college/ or ' one's own father/ and at once we have an image. 
We have now to take account of the condiiions of imagination 
and of the kinds of experience into which it enters. 

Constructive Imagination. 

Note, first, a wider and a narrower sense in the word 
Imagination. In the former it means simply forming an 
image, i.e. reviving a percept. In the latter it means the 
process of forming a new image, a mental construction out of 
elements had perhaps in experience but not yet so combined. 
This is called Constructive or Productive Imagination, and 
cannot be regarded by us at present, since it is more complex 
than Re-presentative Imagination, and involves distinct 
elements of Emotion as determining its constructions. In 
popular parlance Imagination usually stands for Constructive 
Imagination, but in Psychology it means Re-presentative 
Imagination, if not particularised farther. Constructive 
Imagination, however, is always Re-presentative. A poet 
never constructs the elements of his creations de novo ; his 
utmost originality, speaking absolutely, consists in presenting 
new combinations of elements to our representative conscious- 
ness. But we are now concerned with bringing what was in 
our consciousness back again to our consciousness. 

Let the student note well his dreams to-night, especially if 
they contain any experiences he has not had as percepts. 
We shall come to talk of them. 



For Lecture XXI read : — 

Bain, pp. 89-93; Hoffding, V, B, § 7, a ; Sully, Illusions, chaps, i, 
ii, vi, vii, x ; Taine, De V Intelligence, on the ' Image ' — the most 
instructive of all. 

Consult Galton, Mind, v (i88o\ pp 301 et seq. ; cf. also his Inquiries 
into Human Faculty, London, 1883. 



LECTURE XXI. 

REPRESENTATIVE IMAGES, NORMAL AND ABNORMAL. 
Development of the Percept by way of the Image. 

This l pillar/ then, which we have as a percept may also 
come before us otherwise than as a percept. We may by 
leaving the room or shutting our eyes have a conscious 
image of it. Again, suppose our thought be ' Pillars support 
roofs/ then it is not a percept of that pillar which rises for 
us in consciousness, but we are conscious of some general 
pillar which is most like that pillar we oftenest see. 
Again, suppose some one to say, ' Pillars were much used in 
Greek architecture ' ; then we do not get a definite percept 
or a definite image in consciousness, yet what there is, is 
a definite fact in consciousness. Both this latter case, how- 
ever, and that of the image of the pillar got with our eyes 
shut, have a relation to Perception. But, further, our 
notions are by no means limited to things we can perceive. 
Suppose some one to say, ' Nations are aggregates of human 
beings held together by a central power ' ; here we cannot 
perceive a nation, and yet we can have a very definite notion 
in consciousness of a nation. We see then that percepts by 
no means exhaust the data of consciousness nor the products 
of intellect, but are data for higher constructions, while they 



Elements of Psychology. 139 

themselves are constructions from simpler data. And they 
become fitted for higher constructions by passing through 
the form of the Image. 

Sense- perception always tends to overpower Imagination. 

I referred to dreams because I wish the student to get the 
typical image. We have then vivid representations of objects 
seen and heard, &c, although there has been no proper sense- 
experience in the case. Seldom do waking images have the 
intensity and vividness of the dream-image. Their common 
feature is absence of sense-excitation, yet many dreams — 
those just before waking and just after falling asleep — have 
a base of sense ; nay, even the dreams of deep slumber have 
a base sometimes of organic sensation. Why should there 
be this superior vividness in the dream-image? Because 
there is at the time no rivalry between the dream-image and 
conflicting percepts. While I am picturing the college-dome, 
I have all my class before me. If I close my eyes, and 
picture it, still I have conflicting percepts, from my chair, 
from sounds I hear, as well as from the consciousness that 
I must proceed with my lecture; whereas in sleep the life 
of sense and its activities is practically cut off. Hence if we 
happen to be imagining during our slumber, the images 
that arise, not being damped down by sense-percepts, start 
forth into perfect clearness and distinctness, thus showing 
us — and this is the psychological interest of the dream-image — 
what the waking image tends to be. Hobbes's metaphor is 
striking- — 'When the sun goes down the stars shine out/ — 
meaning percept and image respectively. The weakness of 
the image is not so much inherent as due to the superior 
strength of the percept. This, though not necessarily the 
whole question, is yet an important factor. 



140 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

Normal and Abnormal Images, 
The dream-image, we may well say, is a fact of normal 
experience, yet relative to our waking consciousness so far 
abnormal, that a comparison of the two throws light on the 
character of the truly normal or waking image. More 
abnormal processes are those of Hallucination and Illusion. 
To understand these let us first consider other kinds of 
conscious states midway, as it were, between percept and 
image, viz. the After-image and ' Subjective Sensation/ 

States midway between Percept and Image. After-image. 
The After-image (Nachbild) is a decaying or fading 
percept, a remnant left in consciousness by a percept, 
a percept not yet wholly out of consciousness, though out of 
distinct consciousness, such as the reverberation of a bell in 
our ears when the bell has ceased to ring, or what we still 
1 see* with closed eyes after looking at the sun. Afier-images 
of vision appear in two forms, positive and negative. The 
former has the general character of the percept to which it 
is due. But after-images of coloured percepts appear to 
us with a certain contrasted colour called ' complementary/ 
and these are negative after-images. The image proper, or 
' memory-image/ is no mere fading positive after-image, but 
a resuscitated construction arising after the total disappearance 
of the percept. The memory-image involves a discontinuity 
in time. 

Subjective Sensations. 
Subjective sensation is a very misleading phrase of physio- 
logists (since all sensations are subjective), used to mean 
actual sense-experience without external stimulus, at least of 
a normal kind. All the senses are liable to occasional stimuli 
in the organ itself sufficiently disturbing to reach the brain, 



xxl] Elements of Psychology. 141 

e. g. singing in the ears during a catarrh. These phenomena 
can scarcely be called sensation at all, but ought rather to be 
classed as perception, since we give all of them spatial 
reference. Strictly speaking, again, they are not in all cases 
even intra-organically initiated, e. g. ' phospheme/ which is 
the name for the ring of light produced by pressing the 
eyeball. 

Abnormal Images. Hallucination. 

In the case of Hallucination there is no sense-stimulus; 
it is the name for an image of such abnormal vividness as 
to rival the percept in distinctness and be mistaken by the 
subject of it for a percept ; in other words, the hallucination 
appears with all the subjective characters of the percept. 
I may, for instance, being in a very depressed state of health 
on account of the loss of a dear relative, imagine him sitting 
before me in an empty chair. The hallucination may vie 
with, or outvie, the percept in vividness. Our ghost may be 
transparent or opaque. And we may be conscious of the 
hallucination as such or have it unconsciously, which is an 
incipient form of insanity. The chess-player playing many 
games simultaneously with his eyes blindfolded is calling up 
images of the boards and pieces which for his purposes are 
as good as percepts. But there is no percept, because there 
is no peripheral stimulation ; and this is what we gain from 
a study of Hallucination. We can always tell whether we 
have a hallucination or a percept by closing or moving away 
the peripheries apparently stimulated, for a percept is under 
our motor control, whilst a hallucination is not. 

Illusion. 

An illusion, on the other hand, sometimes confused with 
hallucination, but clearly distinguished by Taine and Professor 



142 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

Sully 1 , is abnormal imaging with a sense-stimulus. I might, 
for instance, in a dim light mistake a cloak thrown over a chair 
for that deceased relative, as was the case with Sir Walter Scott 
and the fancied apparition of Byron at Abbotsford. Here 
a real sense-stimulus arouses an image other than what it 
normally does arouse. The psychological interest of Illusion 
is the light it throws, not on the image, but on the percept. 
We see by it how much of Imagination enters into the percept, 
the illusion being inappropriate, instead of appropriate, 
imaging on occasion of sense-stimulation. Perception is 
verifiable Imagination on occasion of sense-stimulation, Illu- 
sion is unverifiable. S.ott could verify the apparent percept 
by speech and touch. 

Zklusion, the state characterising the lunatic, is persistently 
maintained Illusion or Hallucination. 

Image in its Relation to Percept, 

The Image, then, is related to the percept and yet is 
distinguished from it. The percept is clearer and distincter 
than the normal image, clearer as a whole, distincter in parts. 
Also the image involves no stimulation of the peripheral 
sense-organ, as in the case of the percept, and therefore no 
muscular activity directed towards the sense-organs, or in 
connexion with them. Nevertheless the image does call into 
play exactly the same parts of the brain as are involved 
in Perception. Later inquiry leaves no doubt of the general 
truth hereon laid down by Professor Bain 2 . The percept 
arises in consciousness through a direct peripheral stimulus ; 
the image has no such stimulus. But in the one mental 
function, the brain is called into play in the same way 
as in the other. To talk of storing up images in either 

1 Illusions, ch. ii, &c. 2 Op. cit, p. 89, § 11. 



xxl] Elements of Psychology. 143 

brain or mind, like bottles in a cupboard, is false both for 
Perception and for Imagination. 

Varying power of Imagination. 

Minds differ vastly in imaginative power as in perceptive 
power. As, in abnormal imaging, there are all grades of 
hallucination, from the shadowiest ghost to quite life-like 
apparitions — so that such an one may, if apparently seated, 
obscure the perception of the chair, the rays of light from 
which in that case stimulate the brain less than the physio- 
logical concomitants of the image — so the power of more 
normal imaging seems to be very variable. Mr. Galton 
has experimented on this point and makes out a very great 
range of difference in the extent to which persons possess 
what he calls the ' faculty of visualising/ or as we should 
say, the power of representative imagination 1 . The term 
1 visualisation ' still further extends the language of Sight 
to cover mental procedure and I do not commend it. 
Mr. Galton maintains that some persons cannot ' visualise ' 
at all, himself among the number. For my part I am 
persuaded that all do to some extent, some in respect more 
of one sense than of another, and that their consciousness of 
inability is because they think that to visualise they should 
image much more than they do. 



For Lecture XXII read : — 

Bain, pp. 85-89; HofFding, V, B, §§ 76-8; Sully, Outlines of 
Psychology, pp. 174-178. 

1 Extreme cases, on the other hand, of vivid visualisation, especially 
in chess-playing, are proved in Taine, op. et loc. cit. I myself have 
a power of visualising above the average. 



LECTURE XXII. 

THE LAWS OF REPRESENTATIVE CONSCIOUSNESS. 

Orderly procedure in the flow of Representative Consciousness. 

I proceed now to the laws determining the flow of repre- 
sentative consciousness or imagination, or how it is that 
images appear for us, — how it is that I, my consciousness 
being markedly presentative, have that consciousness broken 
into by a set of experiences which are all representative. 
From the days of Aristotle it has been observed that there 
is a certain orderliness in our representative experience; 
this orderly procedure has been more or less observed and 
analysed, and the laws that govern it have been discussed 
as showing the nature of mental synthesis generally. The 
whole topic is usually termed Mental Association, Association 
of Ideas or Laws of Association, the term 'association' 
having been first definitely used only since the middle of the 
eighteenth century. 1 do not take up these names here, but 
shall work up to them. 

The connectedness in the flow of representation now under 
consideration is not confined to a bare succession of images, 
as in reverie, but includes any and every protracted process of 
thought ; not only all imagination, but all that goes on in the 
mind intellectually over and above direct sense-presentation. 
It is only by dealing with the nature of this flow that we can 
get at the laws of thought. 



Elements of Psychology. 145 

So far we have mastered the various kinds of images, 
normal and abnormal, as different from, but as related to, 
the percept. We saw that percepts, when we have had them, 
in a manner abide with us, leaving a residuum or residual 
traces; that many percepts undergo a gradual process of 
dying away, but that, even when they have vanished, they are 
still liable to reassert themselves in the form of images ; that 
these, called memory-images or representative images, were 
related to dream-images and hallucinations. We have simply 
defined what the image is, and marked it off from what it is 
not, and from all that is more or less directly related to it, but 
we have not considered what determines, what are the con- 
ditions of, the appearance of the image. We ought to find 
a set of definite laws according to which images appear in 
consciousness; we have to discover a psychological expression 
for the orderly flow of representative consciousness. 

Percept and Image on the side of their Conditions. 

Observe that if we can discover such laws of the revival of 
percepts in the form of image, these laws are and must be 
purely psychological laws. If into my consciousness there 
comes an image, the very fact that it is an image means that 
it is not excited from without by means of sense-stimulus, 
that it must arise in my consciousness according to laws 
which are obviously psychological. Let me here apply 
a definite distinction between an image and a percept. Does 
a percept come into consciousness by mere psychological 
law ? I just now had a percept of a noise in the passage. 
That came into my consciousness not merely and in the first 
instance by any psychological conditions. To a certain extent 
it was physically determined. But it may not have come into 
the consciousness of all present. That means, I attended to 

L 



146 Elements of PsycJtology. [Lect. 

it and some present did not. To the extent to which I turned 
my attention on it, it was for me psychologically determined. 
A percept then, to a certain extent, is both physically and 
psychologically determined. I am perceiving a certain 
number of objects at this moment, but there are many 
more which I could perceive. I am principally conscious 
of objects which are students. Why do I perceive them in 
a way in which I do not perceive the benches ? Because of 
my mental constitution as a teacher. I can teach objects as 
students, but not objects as benches. For purposes of 
illustration I may turn my attention to benches or my friend 
the pillar. That which causes me to see the pillar at certain 
times and not at other times, is not determined by physical 
conditions, but by a psychological condition coming into 
play. In perceiving there are, besides physical conditions over 
which we have no control, psychological conditions. My 
next perceptive experience is determined in general not by 
me but for me — at least within limits. The physical and the 
psychical meet in Perception. It depends upon me whether 
I shall attend to a sense-impression, but it does not depend 
upon me whether or no I shall have this impression to attend 
to. In Perception, then, there is always something indepen- 
dent of the laws of mind. But the flow of images is purely 
psychological. That is why we dealt first with the image. 
In connexion with it we can find out certain laws which have 
reference to perception. But for the present the percept will 
be held in the background. In perceiving there is implicit 
ideation 1 or implicit imagining. When we have found that 
this imagining does not go on in a haphazard way, but by 
certain laws, we shall work back to the percept. 

1 C£ Hoffding, op. cit., pp. 127-128. 



xxil] Elements of Psychology. 147 

Probably constant tendency of the Percept to reproduce itself 

as Image. 

Here let me remark that apparently many images arise in 
consciousness by no law : e. g. we may be reminded, suddenly 
and without wishing it, of a long forgotten scene that hap- 
pened years ago. We may be able to find out in such cases 
positive conditions determining the emergence of the images, 
which at first sight were not apparent. The scene may have 
a certain kind of relation to what is going on in conscious- 
ness. And it does not follow that no conditions are present 
because we cannot assign them. But I am bound to admit 
that, as far as I can watch my own consciousness, it does 
seem as if images came up, not because there was any 
positive reason, but because there was nothing in the way. It is 
at all events conceivable, that previous percepts should reassert 
themselves as images through mere negative determination 
or initiation, i.e. simply because the way was open for them. 
All past percepts which have become massed together accord- 
ing to certain relations may get into such a state of equilibrium 
or mutual arrest, that the way is clear for one particular 
presentation to reinstate itself as image. The percept has an 
intrinsic energy of its own. If it dies away into an after- 
image and then into unconsciousness, it is because it is 
pushed aside, and what had to be pushed aside before, may 
very well reappear. We may, as I said before, liken this 
procedure in consciousness to a stage, where actors come 
forward, assert and reassert themselves and retire. 

Persistence and Obliviscence of Percepts. 

Whether a percept dies wholly out of consciousness so that 
it cannot reappear, is a point for speculation. I think, in 
spite of all the evidence that persons when drowning recall 

L 2 



148 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

their whole past lives in those few moments, that percepts may 
be so pushed aside and so die away, that they will never 
again come up of themselves. 

But since we may not generally assume that things never 
can come into our heads again, we need not be surprised if 
they do come again. It may be likely that a percept may be 
so pushed aside as never to reassert itself, but we have no right 
to say it has clearly gone beyond recovery. What happened 
on the third day of my fifth year I do not know, and in all 
probability it has gone completely beyond control; but if 
something that happened on that day should come up in 
consciousness, I should have no right to be surprised. 
Percepts have this tendency to persist, to reinstate themselves, 
and we cannot say it is overcome simply because a percept 
has not been reasserted in image \ Even if it has gone 
beyond recall, it has had its effect in consciousness, nothing 
in mind any more than in matter being without effect. Not 
the smallest percept but leaves some trace modifying 
consciousness. This is of high import as well as interesting 
in psychology. 

Positive Conditions of Re-instatement. 
What are the positive conditions for the reinstatement of 
percepts as images ? I have already touched upon them and 
now proceed to consider them more systematically. Though 
the representative order follows the perceptual order and the 
latter is determined by extra-psychological causes, nevertheless 
the prominence of this or that perceptual experience in con- 
sciousness requires a subjective explanation. I have alluded 

1 In view of this tendency, constituting as it does a positive deter- 
mining condition, it is perhaps saying too little to speak of mere 
negative initiation. What I mean above, however, by ■ negative ' is 
simply the absence of extrinsic positive conditions. 



xxil] Elements of Psychology. 149 

to the different degrees in which we maybe affected by, e.g., 
footsteps along the corridor without. From this difference 
of effect in different individuals at different times we see 
that this relative prominence depends on the movement of 
the individual attention 1 , that the order of presentation 
depends largely on mental activity. The mind of each at 
any given time is selective in a particular direction, and what 
particular associations will be formed depends not least on 
this subjective factor. Attention is pre-eminently a complex 
mental function, involving Intellection, Conation, and Feeling, 
for which reason I defer at present any further consideration 
of it. This condition is truly adduced, speaking generally, 
but it gives rise to another difficulty. If in the main we only 
associate experiences that we attend to, why do we attend to 
them? Moreover, the original statement does not always 
hold. Although it is clear to analysis that there is a function 
of activity which we must express in terms of Attention, yet 
certain facts seem to show that Contiguous Association can 
be formed without any active Attention at all 2 . Activity may 
go on in the mind without being consciously recognised. 
There is sub-conscious, there may be #«conscious, mental 
activity. Again, there is a wide range of difference in the 
plasticity, ' natural adhesiveness ' (Professor Bain), or associa- 
tive capacity in the individual mind. Some need to have an 

1 Professor Bain — 'concentration of mind'; Professor Sully — 
' action of attention.' 

2 Cf. e. g. the story of the delirious girl speaking Hebrew, &c, cited 
by Taine, Book II, ch. ii, quoting from Abercrombies Inquiry into 
the Intellectual Powers, Some philosophers (Hartley, Mr. Spencer) 
hold that in such cases we do not have the sensations corresponding 
to the physical stimuli at all, and that the organic changes are 
transmitted to the brain but pass away without having had time to 
excite the corresponding mental concomitants. 



150 Elements of Psychology. [Leci 

experience repeated over and over again. Others can form 
long trains of associates after a single experience, as e. g. those 
who have been known capable of repeating whole pages after 
a single hearing. Other things being equal, there is no 
doubt that repetition of experience tends to result in con- 
tiguous associations being formed. This, however, is true 
only up to a certain point; beyond that point continued 
repetition only causes us to neglect the experience. 

Let us now illustrate the process of the reinstatement of 
percepts as images by a diagram (p. 151) 1 . 

Representative consciousness flows on for us in connexion 
with presentative consciousness. (For the moment let pre- 
sentative consciousness = percept, though it be not an equi- 
valent term, there being representative consciousness in all 
perception.) I symbolise presentative consciousness by an 
arrowhead, to mean it is flowing on, in a series of percepts 
like a troop of soldiers passing by. When I have reached 
that part (A) of my perceptive experience, there happens to 
be something about that particular ' soldier ' which keeps me 
from thinking of any others, and makes me imagine him 
there where I saw him. 

The broken line (AB) thus means, that our presentative 
consciousness is liable to be broken through at any point by 
representative consciousness. At B either of two things may 
happen : I may persist in representing as before (AB pro- 
duced), or my representative experience may be diverted and 
flow on in images (BC). At C one of three things may happen: 
my flow of images may persist (BC produced), or be arrested 
by a particular image C, or the perceptive series may reassert 
itself and my attention take it up again either at A or else 

1 This seems to me simpler than, yet not inconsistent with, that 
employed by Prof. Hoffding, op. cit , p. 128. 



XXII.] 



Elements of Psychology. 



J5 1 



at D, with a blank between the old and the new perceptive 
experience. This diagram has the merit of bringing together 
my related presentative and representative consciousness 
and of indicating certain different lines of the latter. E.g., I 
may read four lines of a book, and then, while still apparently 
reading, my mind may drift into a different conscious state, 
imagining some recent or long past experience, and lost in 
reverie or day-dreaming, where the series of images is not 
determined by any actual percepts. And after all I may 
return to the point where I ceased to be perceptive. 




The Two Laws of Suggestion. 
But representation goes on always more or less with the 
current of presentative consciousness ; thus what we find in 
the former has application to the latter. Accordingly, in the 
diagram, the vertical line is intended to mark a relation of 
similarity between its extremes, or its elements. That is to 
say, when at A, if A suggest a particular image, it does so 
through the similarity of the image to A. And this effect of 
similarity may go on (down the vertical line) indefinitely. If, 



152 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

however, B in turn suggest other images not similar to itself 
(along the forward line), the suggestion is said to be by con- 
tiguity. E.g., I go along a road and notice a tree, from which 
a boy stealing apples falls down. If, some time after, I repeat 
the walk and see the tree, I have an image of falling boy. 
This is not effected by contiguity alone, as some think. The 
suggestion, by the tree as it is, of the tree as it was, is by 
similarity. The rest is by contiguity. If the incident is 
recalled at once, the similarity is implicit : if I note the growth 
or other circumstances of the tree first, the similarity becomes 
explicit. 

Now the flow of our representative consciousness is deter- 
mined by the two laws of suggestion just mentioned ; and 
the two are mentally involved' at all events to this extent, that 
contiguity never arises without similarity, and that similarity 
is always liable to be filled out or bodied out by contiguity. 

Historical Note on Association. 

Aristotle, as far as we know, first noted that when we 
remember anything we remember other things along with it, 
and that in memory there are certain relations among repre- 
sentations, viz. Contiguity, Similarity, and Contrast. In the 
seventeenth century there arose certain inquirers who investi- 
gated this subject. Hobbes, e.g., wrote on trains of imagina- 
tion, and Locke considered the association of ideas. Hume, 
in the middle of the eighteenth century, drew attention 
definitely to the association of ideas and discussed its princi- 
ples. Since his time the name and its general significance 
have remained unchanged. Hartley w T as more truly the 
originator of the present Association Psychology than was 
Hume. He definitely formulated a principle of Association, 
which is for him the fundamental law of mental synthesis. 



xxii.] Elements of Psychology. 153 

His one principle corresponds to what Hume and others call 
the Law of Contiguous Association. Other writers have 
since then added to the discussion, as I point out. 



For Lecture XXIII read : — 

Sully, Outlines of Psychology, p. 206 ; Bain, Appendix, 91, 92 ; 
pp. 160 161 ; Ward, p. 60; Spencer, Part II, ch. viii, esp. § 120. 

Note. — On the representation of Time consult Ward, pp. 63-66, 
and Sully, The Human Mind, i, 318 et seq. Croom Robertson 
apparently did not attempt to discuss 'this obscure topic,' as he 
calls it. This may have been either ' for lack of time/ or because of 
the elementary nature of the course. Respecting Professor Sully's 
treatment, he wrote (just prior to his death): 'He seems to be 
working in the right direction in assuming a unique and irreducible 
experience of time-transience, which is transformed by a complex 
constructive process into a distinct representation of present, past, 
and future, such as exists for the developed consciousness. It is 
a serious omission that no reference is made to Ward's view of 
intensity as the primitive element in our time-perception, and of 
movements of attention as constituting temporal signs. This theory 
of temporal signs may fairly be regarded as the most interesting 
contribution to the subject since Herbart, and it ought not to have 
been ignored here* {Mind, i, N.S. 413). — Ed. 



LECTURE XXIII. 



SUGGESTION AND ASSOCIATION. 



Formulation of the Principles of Suggestion. 

I have now shown how to me representative consciousness 
proceeds on the ' base-line ' of perception. Our consciousness 
is never exclusively perceptive, in the waking state, for any 
length of time ; it is always liable to be broken in upon by 
suggested images. ' Suggestion ' is the best word to describe 
the process indicated either by the vertical or horizontal 
dotted lines. The perceptive order is broken because a 
certain percept produced or 'suggested' a certain image. 
And the two laws of Suggestion determining the flow of 
representative consciousness in relation to perceptual ex- 
perience are termed Similarity and Contiguity, and may be thus 
formulated: — Principle of Similarity: — Like suggests like in 
consciousness \ and, Principle of Contiguity : — The representa- 
tive order of experience follows the presentative order, or, things 
that have been conjoint in presentative consciousness tend to 
suggest each other. 

Are there more than two ? Suggestion by Contrast. 

Are these two the only principles of suggestion ? Aristotle, 
in explaining memory and reminiscence, named three 
principles — Similarity, Contiguity, and Contrast. He said, 
that contrasting experiences were mutually suggestive, e.g. 



Elements of Psychology. 155 

rich, poor; high, low; and this as a separate principle has 
by many since been reasserted. Professor Bain however 
has shown that Contrast has not the essential character 
of a distinct suggestive principle, but is a special instance of 
1 Compound Association/ or combined action of the other 
two principles. Contrasts are not any kind of difference, 
but differences under special circumstances ; or, in the 
language of Logic, ' Contraries ' are not any two ' differents/ 
but rather opposiles of the same class, or within the same 
'notion/ Contrasts are likenesses with a difference, or 
differences in the midst of likeness, and it is the likeness 
which causes them to be associated. 

Contrast as Impressive Difference, or Relativity in Consciousness. 

This, however, is not the whole truth. Contrasts are of 
things which differ most on a ba>is of agreement, but it must 
not be thought that things suggest each other because they 
are different, even though Difference is a condition of 
impressive consciousness. We know that when we consciously 
assimilate there must be some amount of diversity. Simi- 
larity without diversity, Similarity with diversity of time only 1 , 
is Identity. For us to have two experiences at all they must 
be somehow different from each other. And when we pass 
from one state of consciousness to another, the latter is 
more impressive according as it is subjectively felt to be more 
different. This is the Principle of Relativity in consciousness, 
called sometimes, but less fitly, the Relativity of Knowledge : 
Relativity of Consciousness is better. We are, then, best 
intellectually conscious under this principle of Relativity, and 
though this fact is not a principle of Association or Sug- 
gestion, yet it helps Association. We do not properly know 

1 Such as is frequently implied in our use of the word ' same.' 



156 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

anything of 'rich,' 'up/ 'right/ &c., unless we have had, 
before or after them, their contrasts 'poor/ c down/ 'left/ 
which are thence r orward suggested through contiguity. Our 
most impressive experiences are those contiguous experiences 
which involve a maximum of difference on a basis of similarity. 

The Two Principles as Exhaustive, 

Similarity and Contiguity therefore suffice. If we take 
our representative consciousness in any of its forms, so far 
as they can be reduced to law at all, they can always be 
shown to proceed according to those two sets of conditions, 
and no others need be assigned. By them we can explain 
memory, in as far as memory can be psychologically ex- 
plained. And any philosophical discussion of the import and 
value of memory must be on this psychological basis. More 
of this in the course on General Philosophy. 

Suggestion and Association. 

Which is the better term for the procedure determined by 
these two principles, — Suggestion or Association? Some- 
times both are used indiscriminately, sometimes one and not 
the other, or less than the other 1 . Are those laws of 
Suggestion in any proper sense laws of Association ? 

Is either Principle more Fundamental? 

Let us first consider whether either is more fundamental 
than the other. James Mill, following Hartley, was for 

1 Professor Bain never uses the term ' suggestion' unless, as it were, 
by accident. Professor Hoffding uses ' suggestion,' yet when dealing 
with the principles of Similarity and Contiguity as explanatory of 
that consciousness called Ideation, he formulates them as laws of 
Association. I used also to speak of laws of Association and net 
of Suggestion (cf. my article on 'Association/ Ency. Brit.). 



xxiil] Elements of Psychology. 157 

resolving Similarity into Contiguity. Mr. Spencer seeks to re- 
solve Contiguity into Similarity. Professor Bain regards both 
as fundamental, and has been followed by J. S. Mill, and 
more recently by Professors Sully, Clark Murray, Wundt 1 , 
and others. I agree in thinking that no mutual reduction is 
possible, that they are independent principles ; but I hold 
that they only rank as parallel principles, if considered as laws 
of Suggestion and not of Association. 

Let us first take Contiguity. It is not only a principle of 
Suggestion, but also fully to be called a principle of Associa- 
tion. Association is joining or bringing together. Do we 
bring together in consciousness under the principle of 
Contiguity facts that, apart from contiguity, would not be 
otherwise brought together ? I think we do ; e. g. I lift my 
hat from the chair. We have the association between the 
thing s hat ' and the word ' hat/ and this is as pure a case of 
Association as may be. The particular sound and that class 
of object would not have been brought together in the 
hearer's consciousness, had he been French and ignorant 
of English. 

Trains and Aggregates in Suggestion by Contiguity. 

Notice here that, whereas the simplest cases of Association 
proper are cases of successions or trains of presentations 
(using this term in its widest sense), as e.g. the alphabet and 
all series of movements, Contiguity determining the succession 
in the order of presentation, it often happens that a number 
of experiences, originally had in a serial order, do not 
continue to be reinstated in that order, but appear as fused, 

1 Professor Wundt, while regarding Contiguity and Similarity as 
both fundamental principles, prefers to speak of them as external or 
extrinsic, and internal or intrinsic, association respectively. 



158 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

blended, or coalesced into a simultaneous aggregate or cluster 
of experiences, or are at least reinstated in a varying order. 
If, e.g., I think of an orange, I have all at once the following- 
cluster of images : — resistance, form, colour, taste, smell, &c. 
All these qualities connoted by the name 'orange' I have 
experienced in every possible permutation ; hence the multi- 
tude of conflicting orders has undergone transformation into 
a fused aggregate, or can be reinstated in varying successions. 
This was first noticed by Hartley. 

Inseparable Association. 

Name and object, indeed, may have so come together in 
consciousness that they have become inseparable. The kind 
of Association termed Inseparable refers to these facts of 
consciousness, namely, to contiguous associates which have 
become so fused as to be practically inseparable, — not 
theoretically so, else we could not distinguish the two as- 
sociates. Such association occurs where Contiguity has 
connected two or more associates which never have been 
had apart, though it must be assumed that they are separable 
and originally separate. Inseparable Association is association 
formed under conditions of invariable experience. A great 
deal of knowledge seems to have a real explanation from 
this fact, which we shall consider again under Philosophy. 
Such association is not had by way of Contiguity only, but 
also by way of Similarity. It is therefore not a kind of 
Association, but only Association under certain conditions. 

Contiguity, the only Principle of Association, is the Principle of the 
Complexity in the flow of Consciousness. 

To revert : — intellectual consciousness has this aspect, that 
it is progressively more and more complex, and this pro- 
gressive complexity or complication needs explanation as 



xxiii. ] Elements of Psychology. 159 

well as the fact of consciousness expressed by the term ' flow/ 
Now if in the process of representative consciousness Con- 
tiguity is to be called a principle of Suggestion, it may equally 
be called a principle of Association as explaining, not the 
' flow/ but this progressive complexity, of consciousness. My 
consciousness of the pillar is a something I had somehow to 
put together. Why should this pillar lead on to ' roof/ and so 
to c wall/ ' window/ ' window-cord/ &c. ? Because of Con- 
tiguity. Now with respect to Similarity : — is it in the same 
sense, or in any sense, a principle of Association? I am 
bound to say, it is not. When like suggests like in con- 
sciousness, as in the case of a man and his portrait, we do 
not find a complex conjunction like that established by 
Contiguity. There is, in fact, only one law of Association^ viz. 
that of Contiguity, and you may use Association as equivalent 
to Suggestion by Contiguity. I do not speak of an Association 
of Similarity, and depart therefore on this point from Professor 
Bain 1 . 

But I am not thereby making light of Similarity as of 
account for Intellection, nor have I done anything to lessen 
its real importance in Intellection. It may not be a principle 
of Association, but, as we shall see, it is an expression of 
that function of Assimilation which enters most intimately 
into Intellection. 



For Lecture XXIV read Bain, pp. 82-85, 151-159. 
1 Cf. on this point the view of Dr. Ward, op. cit 



LECTURE XXIV. 

RESOLUTION OF ASSOCIATION INTO THE LAWS OF INTELLECTION. 

Recapitu la Hon. 

By saying that Similarity and Contiguity are principles of 
Suggestion I mean that they are principles determining the 
flow of representative consciousness, or reproduction in con- 
sciousness *. It is not necessary, in accounting for this flow, 
to bring in the word ' Association/ but if we do so and 
consider what it is in consciousness, we find it is distinctly 
applicable to a certain result detected under the principle 
of Contiguity, or a bringing together that which was not 
conjoint in consciousness in a certain more or less permanent 
fashion, a fashion which may be so permanent that the 
association is practically inseparable or indissoluble. 

The Significance of Similarity in Intellection. 

We need Association or the principle of Contiguity to 
account for the progressive complexity of consciousness, but 
not Similarity. Unquestionably Similarity is one of the chief 
determinants in the flow of our representative consciousness. 
But I am with those who say, there is one law of Association, 
viz. Contiguity. While I thus seem to be subordinating 
Similarity as a principle of Association, I am now to pass 

1 Hamilton {Lectures on Metaphysics, XXXIII) distinguishes between 
a reproductive and a representative faculty — a superfluous distinction. 



Elements of Psychology. 161 

on to show, that if there is anything important for Intellection, 
it is Similarity. 

We have already inquired and found that intellectual 
consciousness as such reveals a compound function of 
Discrimination and Assimilation. When intellectually con- 
scious we are discerning and at the same time assimilating. 
What is this assimilating? Assimilation is that aspect or 
coefficient of Intellection which may be set out thus : — Like 
goes to the account of like in intellectual consciousness. 
Here is Similarity no longer as merely a principle of Sug- 
gestion, i. e. as like tending to recall like in consciousness. 
We may then both speak of Similarity as furnishing a law 
of Suggestion, and set it out as a fundamental factor in 

Intellection. 

The Law of Difference. 

Since Similarity is not the only law of intellectual con- 
sciousness, and since we can express Assimilation in terms 
of a law of Similarity, we ought to be able to express the 
other coefficient of Intellection, Discrimination, in terms of 
law also, as a law, namely, of Difference, thus : — Conscious- 
ness is possible only under circumstances of Difference; or, 
For consciousness Difference of Impression is necessary. 

This that I have suggested to you as the Law of Difference 
has been called the Law of Relativity by Professor Bain 1 , 
and for him it is the necessary complement to the Law 
of Similarity. Professor Hoffding's 2 Law of Relativity is of 
wider scope, including both Discrimination and Similarity, 
nevertheless he ends by making his explanation of the Law 
of Relativity an explanation of the Law of Difference. We 
shall have to recur to this subject of Relativity in the Logic 
and General Philosophy of our course. I wish now only to 

1 Op. cit., pp. 83, 160. 2 Op. cit., pp. 114-117. 

M 



162 Elements of Psychology. [Lect 

add, that if you enter upon the attempt to distinguish between 
these two laws of intellect as to whether one is more funda- 
mental than the other, you would find that the Law of 
Difference is more fundamental than that of Similarity. 
The law of Difference represents the negative condition of 
' being conscious/ Without Discrimination you cannot be 
intellectually conscious. Except with a difference conscious- 
ness cannot proceed. Similarity expresses, not so much the 
fact of your being conscious, as the way of your being con- 
scious. That is the positive condiiion. To the extent that 
my consciousness is discriminative in the case of the pillar, 
the pillar is not chair, not window, not roof; but its being just 
pillar obviously shows I am assimilating. 

Retentiveness, 

Have we, when speaking of these two laws, left any other? 
Are we to allow as a third law Retentiveness ? Is it a third 
coefficient in Intellection ? Is it not rather a fact of Mind as 
a whole than of any one phase ? It is certainly involved in a 
way in Intellection, and becomes most distinctly manifest in 
relation to Intellection, yet we cannot say it enters into the very 
being of consciousness as do Discrimination and Assimilation. 
If it could be shown that representation is involved in dis- 
crimination, then indeed we should have to include the third 
function of retention in every intellectual process. But the 
consciousness of bare difference in passing from one sensation 
to another seems to involve nothing but Discrimination and 
Assimilation. Professor Bain tells us that Intellect involves 
these two and also Retentiveness. The first he expresses in 
the form of a Law of Relativity, the second in that of the Law 
of Similarity, but what he calls Retentiveness is expressible as 
a Law of Contiguity, i. e. that if things happen together, you 



xxiv.] Elements of Psychology. 163 

retain them in that connexion, so that you get a progressively 
complex consciousness. Thus under the term Retentiveness 
he draws attention to an aspect of consciousness which 
I regard as Association in terms of Contiguity. But this 
fact of progressive complexity of consciousness is, so to 
speak, an after-fact, and does not enter into the very being 
of consciousness. You could be intellectually conscious 
without retaining. Intellection is explained by Discrimination 
and Assimilation. Its progressive complexity is explained 
by Association, the function corresponding to the principle 
of Contiguity. 

Special Forms of Association. 

What has been called Constructive Association ! is not 
a new principle, but Association under certain conditions of 
Feeling. Feeling determines the end for which the con- 
structive association takes place. Hence this subject is 
more properly treated of under Conation and after Emotion. 

Again, it is important that ' Obstructive Association ' 2 
should not be misunderstood. It is not another kind of 
association, but only an effect of the working of the laws 
of Suggestion. Representation flows on in a certain course 
in virtue of these laws ; it may be stopped by another train 
of images, but if so, this stoppage is also caused by the 
principle of Association and by nothing else. Under certain 
circumstances the laws of Suggestion may be obstructive of 
a particular line of associat'ons either by way of Contiguity 
or Similarity. Take the case of my seeing a person I have 
met before. Seeing him should call up his name in my con- 
sciousness, but as a matter of fact another name is called up 
which obstructs my recollection of the name I want. Either 

1 Bain, op. cit, pp. 161, et seq. 2 Bain, op. cit., p. 159. 

M 2 



164 Elements of Psychology. 

the person I see is somewhat like the holder of the name I da 
recall (Law of Similarity), or I saw him some time in the 
past in company with the holder of the name I recall (Law 
of Contiguity). 

We can now see how it is in terms of Obstructive Associa- 
tion that we can for the most part explain Forgetfulness. 
Take the case of a child who on reaching a shop forgets 
the object of his errand. Here it is not that the flow of 
association comes to a dead stop, though this may sometimes 
be the case. But it is that the laws of Suggestion have 
carried the flow along a divergent path ; hence the forgetful- 
ness of the path on which a memory of the errand would 
have been maintained. 

Obstructive Association, then, is a term used with reference 
to a particular line of association which we have in view, and 
if we forget this line, it is the laws of Suggestion that turn 
us off. 

Finally, there is one kind of mental experience that is 
governed by association entirely, and that is the trains of 
bare representation termed Reverie. In Expectation, on the 
other hand, we have representative experience that may be 
haphazard or may be voluntary. In it the time-relation of 
memory is inverted ; it is representation with a forward 
reference. 



For Lecture XXV read : — 

Hoffding, V, B, § 9; Sully, Outlines of Psychology , pp. 242-247, 
254-257 ; Appendix F. 

Note. — In correction of Heffding, p. 114, footnote, the term 
' relativity' was used by Professor Bain before Professors Wundt and 
Ward used it. 



LECTURE XXV. 

THOUGHT. PERCEPT, IMAGE, CONCEPT. 

Intellectual Processes and Products. 

After we have discovered the laws of representation and 
the laws of intellection generally, it remains for us to find out 
the remaining intellectual products arising under them in 
consciousness. We found first of all the Percept and ex- 
plained it only in its connexion with Sense. We then took 
account of the Image and saw that it was related to the 
Percept. And now we must take account of one more 
intellectual product, and that is the Concept. When we 
have explained each of these three as it arises, we have 
completed the work of the psychology of Intellection. We 
have then before us three intellectual products : — 

\ Percept. 
Represe] 
Concept. 

and three corresponding processes : — 

Perception. 

Imagination (Representative), 

Conception. 

Conception. 

Note that Conception in Psychology has a wider and 
a narrower sense. In its wider sense it may be taken as 
equivalent to Thought or Thinking proper. Less widely 



( Representative Image. ) 



t66 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

understood, it means a certain mode of Thought. In the wider 
sense Thought or Conception, from the time of Aristotle 
downwards, has been universally considered as presenting 
three forms: — (i) Conception (in the narrower sense, i.e. 
general intellection in its most concentrated form), (2) Judg- 
ment, (3) Reasoning. When I am dealing with Thought in 
its linguistic and logical aspect, and not till then, I shall give 
a proper account of the psychological difference between 
these three. To-day I overlook the difference and attend to 
what they have in common ; I do not exclude Judgment and 
Reasoning from Conception, but consider the antithesis 
between Perception and Conception in its wider meaning of 
Thought, — Thought, that is to say, not in the popular sense 
of intellectual consciousness in general, but in its stricter 
psychological sense of Intellection on occasion of general 
notions \ 

Products of Intellection as interrelated. 

We are then to consider Percept, Image, and Concept in 
their relation to one another as results of intellectual law. 
Taking our pillar, as constituting a percept actually present, 
we may remember that there is a corresponding pillar in the 
next lecture-room ; this gives us a representative image. 
What then do we mean by the thought or concept of 
a pillar ? Pillar in general. This is neither the pillar we see, 
nor that which we were imaging, yet it in a way includes all 
the pillars of which we can be conscious. Why should the 
1 concept ' pillar mean pillars ' in general ' ? The answer is 
suggested in the prefix con, which = together. Per in percept 

1 Many philosophers and even many psychologists, e. g. Professor 
Bain, disregard this useful restriction of the terms Thought and 
Thinking to the ' peculiar narrow sense ' (cf. Bain, op. cit., p. 146) 
employed by, e. g., Hamilton, Professor Sully, &c. 



xxv.] Elements of Psychology. 157 

represents the fullness or completeness (per = thoroughly) 
of my apprehension of the particular pillar. In conceiving 
in my thought every possible kind of pillar, I get an ad- 
vantage in ■ taking them together ' (con-capid), but I do not 
get as much in them all as I get in the perception of one 
single pillar. 

Now we may see, that image and percept have under one 
aspect something in common, just as image and concept 
have something in common under another aspect. The 
image is the percept reproduced apart from sense-stimulation, 
otherwise both are alike. The percept has always the 
character of singularity. If I image a class in the next 
room, has my image also the character of singularity ? Yes. 
Percept and image have always as intellectual products this 
character of singularity, or as it is sometimes called, though 
less fitly, particularity. Wherein then does the image re- 
semble the concept? Both are void of sense-stimulation, 
both are representative. What is the difference between 
them ? The concept is more widely representative : it has 
not the character of singularity. In a concept, we may be 
representing not only all the pillars we have perceived but all 
that we can imagine. 

If images are already representative, how can we designate 
the further process ? Mr. Spencer uses the word ' re-repre- 
sentative/ The concept is re-representative and may be so 
to any ' power/ As soon as we have passed from image to 
concept we have an indefinite vista of intellectual development, 
although we are dealing with no new intellectual function. 
In conceiving or re-representing we bring together a number 
or multiplicity of images on the ground of similarity. The 
fact of likeness is the great determinant, by which in the 
concept we bring a plurality to unity. 



168 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

Generic Images, 

Some have put in between the image and the concept 
the Generic Image, a distinction useful in so far as it shows 
that some concepts come nearer to the image than others. 
Whenever, in a concept, similarity predominates over dif- 
ference in a multitude of particulars brought together, then 
the concept retains most of the characteristics of the image. 
In thinking of * sheep/ unless we are dwelling on the word 
sheep, we get not one image, nor yet necessarily a succession 
of images, but a sort of general idea of a sheep. This result 
is not itself exactly an image, it is not the image of any one 
sheep we ever actually perceived, but it still has something of 
the definiteness of an image in it, a certain schematic dis- 
tinctness. This is a generic image or schema, and it is for 
us the thought or concept of sheep. 

But if we think of ' father' — not our own, but any father 
— we have no generic image of ' father ' in the mind : the 
differences are too great. In c nation/ again, we cannot get 
even an indefinite image ; yet somehow the mind, though it 
cannot call up a generic image, gets hold of the meaning 
of the term. Such a concept, again, as ' relation ' is still 
further removed from the generic image. Who can definitely 
image what we mean by 'relation'? As a fact we may 
believe that when we think of 'nation/ 'relation/ and the 
like, though the thought may be general, some particular 
image comes before the mind; nevertheless that image is not 
the general thought with which the mind was concerned. 
It is one thing to image a number of fathers, and another 
to conceive a father. In such cases we see that the facts of 
likeness, which enable us to form the concept, are much less 
than, are subordinate to, the differences that are overcome, 
and do not predominate as in the Generic Image. Never- 



xxv.] Elements of Psychology. 169 

theless the concept, so far as it is a definite fact of conscious- 
ness, comes to us as a deposit of resemblances. 

Thought as General. 

The characteristic attitude of thought or thinking, then, 
when the term is properly used, is its generality. Although 
I can think of a single thing, thinking, in its import, is 
essentially general. If I think of a pillar, I have it before me, 
not as a particular thing, but in its likeness to other pillars. 
The concept brings together a multitude or variety of images 
re-representatively on the ground of likeness, constituting 
a notion so general as to be termed a ' general notion/ 

Thought as Abstract, 

Thought is generalisation by way of abstraction. Ab- 
straction is the means by which we arrive at generality. 
But ' abstract' and 'general' are not the same. We cannot get 
generalisation without abstraction, but we can get abstraction 
without generalisation. We may, say, have an abstract con- 
sideration which is not general. Abstraction may be taken 
as equivalent to (a) taking away, (b) looking away from ; the 
latter is the more psychological meaning. In psychology 
I abstract, i.e. I look away from, points of difference. I do 
not abstract the likeness : I attend to points held in common, 
to the exclusion of points of variety or difference. The 
abstraction necessary for generalisation means a looking 
away from points of difference to attend to points of 
similarity. 

Percept and Concept as Antithetical. 

Now compare once more the three products — percept, 
image, concept. For convenience we may drop the second, 
since, except with regard to sense-stimulation — it is the same 



170 Elements of Psychology. 

as the percept. Between percept and concept we get a real 
antithesis. If the percept is an intellectual product, it must 
involve discrimination and assimilation. So also must the 
concept if it too is an intellectual product. Where then is 
the difference? Discrimination and assimilation are involved 
in both cases, but not equally so. In the case of perception, 
discrimination is to the front ; in conception, although 
discrimination is present, assimilation predominates. The 
concept arises through the process of assimilation, and the 
percept chiefly through the function of discrimination. Thus 
it is in accordance with the ultimate laws of intellection, 
that we can give the relation between perception and con- 
ception. 



For Lecture XXVI read : — 
Spencer, Pt. VIII, ch. ii ; Hoffding, p. 130; Bain, pp. 176-181. 



LECTURE XXVI. 

PERCEPT AND CONCEPT; THEIR INTERDEPENDENCE AND 

EVOLUTION. 

Everything that we can call thought, or understanding, is 
included within this notion of conception (in the wider sense). 
Psychologically we define thought as intellection by way of 
concepts. Understanding, in its psychological import, stands 
on the same level as thought. 

Perception and Conception mutually interdependent. 

Conceiving presupposes perceiving. Perceiving involves 
conceiving. Let us see that we fully grasp this. 

Perceiving is marking off, distinguishing, discerning. * To 
discern' is used in as general, and again, in as specific, 
a sense as ' to perceive/ just as ' to see ' is often extended to 
mean to understand or conceive. It is only within the last 
century that perceiving has come to mean ' sense-perceiving/ 
Locke and the psychologists of the eighteenth century used 
the word ' perceive ' when they could have used ' conceive ' 
or ' think/ That ' to discern ' is equivalent ' to perceive ' 
shows that discrimination is the prominent aspect of per- 
ception. The salient feature of my intellection of the pillar 
is, that I am distinguishing ' the pillar ' from everything else, 
whereas the salient feature of my concept is, that I am 
bringing together, on the ground of likeness, a great variety 



172 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

of experience. In perceiving I am marking off on the ground 
of difference; in conceiving I am bringing together on the 
ground of likeness. 

Not that I cease to discriminate in conceiving. In the 
very fact of abstraction, in bringing together on a ground of 
likeness, I am discriminative. In generalising, I am assimi- 
lating with a background of discriminative activity. When 
I have formed my concept ' man ' on the ground of likeness 
I am thinking of t man ' as different from any other thought. 
Concepts are governed, not only by the law of Similarity, 
but also by the law of Relativity. The import of this is seen 
in Logic. 

Again, if in perceiving we are essentially discriminating, 
we are also assimilative, — unquestionably so, in the case of 
the developed perception of adult consciousness. When my 
consciousness is developed to the extent that I can say, 
' I perceive that pillar with my eyes/ I am marking it off not 
only, through present sense-consciousness, from the wall, the 
benches, &c, but also from everything in my past experience, 
except the experiences of objects I have learnt to know as 
pillars. I interpret my present with the aid of my past 
experience. The better I have conceived, the more exactly am 
I able to perceive. How is it that one perceives better than 
another, eyesight being equally good ? The one brings more 
concepts to bear on the presentative experience of the moment. 
E.g. we look out on the horizon and see an object, whereupon 
a sailor says, ' That is a schooner/ Why could he distinguish 
it as such, when to us it is only { an object ' ? Because we 
as landsmen could not interpret the sight through our want 
of past experience in that direction, whereas the sailor, with 
perhaps inferior eyesight, is able for the opposite reason to do 
so at once. Take again the popular, and the technical ot 



xx vl] Elements of Psychology. 173 

scientific conception of pillar. The man of science brings 
a different set of concepts from those brought to bear by any 
one else. The question of Illusion might without impropriety 
be treated of at this stage. In common normal life we differ 
in perceiving, because we bring different concepts to bear on 
our presentative experience. When our perception is of the 
kind called illusion or misconcept, we are bringing concepts 
of an abnormal kind to bear on our presentative experience, 

Mr. Spencer's Scheme, 

All developed perceiving, then, depends upon or involves 
conceiving ; just as, in another way, conceiving pre-supposes 
perceiving \ Hence the fourfold order, and hence the term 
for Perception employed by Mr. Spencer in marking out the 
divisions of Cognition or Intellection : — 

[Presentative Cognitions.] 

Presentative-Representative Cognitions = Perception. 
Representative Cognitions ■= Representative Imagination. 
Re-representative Cognitions ^Conception an its wider sense). 

Mr. Spencer has no hesitation in saying that Presentative 
Cognition corresponds to Sensation. But any sense-expe- 
rience is more or less perceptual, is 'presentative-representa- 
tive/ Sensation, in the strict sense of the word, as I have 
already pointed out, does not represent any fact of actual 
experience, but in itself is an abstraction. By ' presentative 
cognition/ then, we must understand something correspond- 
ing not to the whole of consciousness on any occasion 
of intellection, but — and this is indicated in the table by 
brackets — to an ideal starting-point or limiting conception 
for purposes of scientific explanation. Thus qualified it 
may well be put down in such a scheme as Mr. Spencer's. 

1 Notice Professor Holding's illustration of this, op. cit., p. 130, &c. 



174 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

The Historical Prius of Perception and Conception. 

If all our actual presentative experience is at the same time 
representative, while there must always be something pre- 
sentative to start with, how do we first come to represent? 
Sense by itself is not perception ; it becomes so only by 
representation ; where then are we going to get our repre- 
sentation for our first perception ? Some philosophers say 
we come into the world with a mind containing ' innate 
ideas/ This hardly suffices for a psychological explanation, 
and our only way out of the difficulty is this. There are two 
stages in the development of our intellectual experience. 
When we are able in the fullest sense to perceive, we are 
already able to conceive. But first we had to develop from 
a lower stage, which was not that of perception till we 
acquired the power of perceiving. And that prior stage is 
one that cannot be expressed in terms of perception and con- 
ception. It was a passage in intellectual consciousness from the 
vague to the definite. Our first consciousness is just a vague, 
confused, chaotic mass, which we have to clear. To borrow 
a figure from chemistry, our first experience is in a state of 
solution, and from this solution something has to be pre- 
cipitated. The percepts that involve concepts are e precipi- 
tates ' from an earlier stage of conscio^ness, and imply that 
there has been a passage from vague to definite. But we are 
bound to assume, that precisely the same laws that apply to 
percept and concept apply in the case of passing from vague 

to definite. 

The Vague and the Discrete. 

For ' definite ' substitute ' discrete/ and let ' discrete ' stand, 
in relation to ' vague/ as a possible percept, a percept, i.e., 
not yet involving concepts, by the interpreting efficacy of 
which the discrete becomes a percept. Discrete again is ' con- 



xxvi.] Elements of Psychology. 175 

crete/ by which I mean made up of distinguishable elements. 
We may now get this scheme : — 

Vague 

1 

discrete (concrete) = percept 

1 

abstract = concept. 

Let us assume I have no previous concept of pillar. At first 
I could only be vaguely affected by it, then I come to be con- 
scious of it as (a) a discrete, as something marked o!T, which 
may come to be a percept ; (b) a concrete, as opposed to this 
or that simpler kind of experience, in that it is a concrescence 
of sensible elements of the discrete, sound, size, form, &c, all 
growing together. As (a) my intellection of pillar involves 
the laws of discrimination and assimilation : in as far as {a) is 
(6) it involves also the law of association. 

Development of the Concept out of the Discrete by way of 
Abstraction. 

How do we form the concept? Obviously on the basis 
of the percept. To form a concrete we bring together all 
the sensible elements or aspects of the discrete. But in 
the concept we are dealing more with the abstract. The 
concept is formed by attending, in the variety of experience, 
to the like. The moment we begin to perceive, we find 
a multiplicity of percepts. Not to neglect or be overwhelmed 
by this multiplicity, as happens with stupid folk, but to master 
it, is the problem of conception. The way of mastery is 
attention to the like, neglect of the unlike. In this way the 
multiplicity is brought together. 

Theories as to the nature of the Concept. 
Can this be done, can the concept be formed, can the 
multiplicity be held together in consciousness without the 



176 Elements of Psychology. 

assisting particularity or singularity of an image or a percept? 
Some have thought this possible, and the mental product e.g. 
of a multiplicity of triangles, to be a triangle that was neither 
equilateral, nor isosceles, nor scalene, &c. This is the 
position of Conceptualism, — the thinking of a general thing 
without thinking of things in particular. Others say, it is 
impossible for the mind to bring together its multiplicities 
without some representative or symbolic percept or image, 
notably that of the name, written, spoken, or otherwise 
expressed. This is the position of Nominalism. 



For Lecture XXVII read : — 
Hoffding, V, B, §§ 10, 11 ; Taine, op. cit., I, ch. i, ii. 



LECTURE XXVII. 

THOUGHT, LOGIC, AND LANGUAGE. 
The two modes of Thinking, (a) in Logical Order. 

We saw that Conception in one sense is equivalent to 
Thinking or General Intellection, and in another sense is a 
mode of Thinking, the other modes being Judgment and 
Reasoning. Judging as distinct from Conceiving is the 
bringing together in our thought two concepts, whereas in 
Reasoning three concepts are grouped together. Take, e.g., 
the concept (not image or percept) ' man/ ' Man is rational/ or 
'a rational animal/ is a judgment. ' Man is rational because 
speaking' is a process of reasoning. Thus the three present 
a scale of increasing complexity, when considered on the side 
of mental products expressed in definite form, viz. in language. 
Now in Logic there is very good ground for taking the three 
in this order and under this aspect, inasmuch as the logician 
is concerned, not, as is the psychologist, with the explanation 
of thought-procedure, but with its regulation with a view to 
making it true and consistent, and we can only apply canons of 
truth and consistency to thought when it is definitely expressed 
in articulate speech. Accordingly all logicians have divided 
their subject-matter into these three departments, — the Logic 
of Conception, the Logic of Judgment, the Logic of 
Reasoning. Conception used to be called Simple Apprehen- 
sion, a concept in a judgment being 'compoundly appre- 

N 



178 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

hended.' Whately still called it so, but Hamilton, following 
the Germans, substituted the far better term ' Conception/ 
Apprehension, in developed Psychology, is more applicable 
to Perception than to Conception, which could only be 
expressed by Comprehension. 

(b) In Psychological Order. 

But in Psychology we do not consider whether a thought 
is true or untrue ; we just consider how it has arisen in con- 
sciousness. Because the logician does well to consider con- 
ception before judgment (i.e. names before propositions), and 
judgment before reasoning (propositions before arguments 
or syllogism), this does not imply that we form concepts in 
the mind before we fo:m judgments, and judgments before 
we form reasonings. I have got a concept or notion of ' man/ 
That notion must be a certain kind of notion, must have 
a certain content, different in my consciousness from the 
content of the concept ' horse.' What is then the content of 
this notion 'man'? Wherein lies the difference? What is 
in my thought when I think of man ? Let us say ' a rational 
animal/ But I cannot express or explicate or unfold this 
content without putting it in the form of judgment : — ' man 
is a rational animal/ But I am not only forming a judgment 
in arriving at my concept, I am really forming two judg- 
ments : — ' Some animals are rational — some are not/ We 
mark off ' rational animals ' as * men/ Our concept is really 
; a deposit from two judgments. But in judging some animals 
rational, we must have had some ground for saying so, and 
have done so by the implication of reasoning ; we have 
inferred rationality in man. When therefore we probe it 
down psychologically, we find that each concept comes, under 
any given aspect, from two judgments, which have involved 



xx vil] Elements of Psychology. 179 

reasoning. Reasoning is judgment explicated ; judgment 
is reasoning boiled down ; a concept is condensed judgment. 
This proves that, for purposes of science, it may be 
necessary to separate in expression things which in point of fact 
are mutually involved. For purposes of psychological science 
we need to distinguish Conception, Judgment, and Reasoning, 
and for purposes of logical regulation we must not only 
distinguish but also arrange them expressly. At the same 
time we do not deny that in the flow of consciousness thev 
proceed in a mutually involved fashion. 

Thought and Expression. 
I have in connexion with thought spoken much of ex* 
pression. Thinking and speaking are related to each other 
in a very intimate way. All mental activity tends to find 
expression, but articulate speech, as the vehicle for exposition 
or statement, is peculiarly the expression of the psychological 
function of intellection, most of all, of general intellection. 
How shall we express the concept, judgment, reasoning or 
inference? By the name, proposition, and syllogism or 
argument. In connexion with the function of thinking, 
then, it is of deep interest to consider the important function 
of speaking. 

How far is Intellectual Procedure Independent of Language? 
As far as we have seen, there is nothing in perceiving that 
could not go on without speech. Dumb people are so, as a 
rule, because they are born deaf, and deaf persons, left to 
themselves, never speak ; although, as is well known, they can 
be taught to do so by associating movements of the tongue, 
larynx, &c, with the visible movements of the lips of the 
teacher. There is no reason to suppose that the dumb are 
unable to perform the intellectual construction upon sensation 

N 2 



180 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

that we call Perception. Perception can go on without 
speech, even though normally it may not do so. 

This is equally true for imagining, and for generically 
imagining. Even the lower animals may possibly be able to 
get as far as this. 

Thought and Systematic Speech. 
But beyond this it is questionable how far we are in- 
dependent of speech. Concepts that are more abstract than 
generic images can in all probability not be formed by the 
dumb, and are not formed by the speaking human being 
without the help of language as a system of marks and signs. 
Animals can perceive, also imagine, but they have not the 
progressive mental development of thought always finding 
expression in some definite linguistic system. This is true 
of our thought in its highest development and also in its 
beginning. Children do not think before they speak, but 
often speak before they think. Thought proceeds by way of 
expression. But for some way of exit, but for some means 
of expressing our mental experience, we should never come 
to have the orderly succession of thoughts that we do have. 
The human mind, overburdened by the multitude of its 
experiences, trying to make clear the likeness among them 
and failing to do it in the form of an image, is so constituted 
that it then puts forth an action of some kind. In every 
case where we are conceiving (i.e. bringing together a 
number of things on the ground of likeness), but cannot 
generically imagine, we help ourselves by some kind of 
expressive image. 

Speech required to Co-ordinate Experience. 
Expression includes gestures, drawings, &c., as well as the 
spoken word. But the larynx, and the respiratory system 



xxvil] Elements of Psychology. 181 

generally, is an organ, or group of organs, through which 
expression takes place more readily and with less diffusion 
of energy than through any other. Children discover its 
use during the first few moments of their life. But crying is 
not speech. Speech first comes into play when conceiving 
begins. It is when the mind has to overmaster its experience 
in order not to be overmastered by it, that speech comes to 
our aid and enables us to overmaster our experience. For 
want of speech much experience may be neglected altogether, 
e.g. by the dumb and the lower animals. It is only by the 
elaboration of that system of connexions between expressive 
movements of throat, tongue, jaw, and lips, and the resulting 
sounds, that thought is both registered and signified in a 
relatively adequate manner. 

The more Fundamental Function of Speech, 
Of these two functions the latter is really the more 
fundamental. We come to conceive and to master our 
experience by way of language only when we have to 
communicate. Speech arises as a means of expressing 
thought, not for the individual, but between man and man. 
Hobbes, in his definition of a name l , puts the registration 
of thought to oneself by language prior to the signifying of 
thought by language to others. Both Mill 2 and Taine 3 
follow Hobbes, considering the marking function as prior 
to the signifying function. This is wrong psychologically. 
Definite expression dates from the intercourse of man with 

1 ' A name is a word taken at pleasure to serve for a mark which 
may raise in our mind a thought like to some thought we had before, 
and which being pronounced to others may be to them a sign of 
what thought the speaker had before in his mind.' Computation or 
Logic, ch. ii. 

2 Logic, Bk. I, ch. ii, § I. 3 Op. cit., vol. i, ch. i, ii. 



182 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

man. It is thrown out as a signification, taken up and 
thrown back by another to the first, and then, but not before, it 
really becomes a mark. Thus the deaf mute has difficulty in 
finding his gestures taken up and adequately returned; they 
are too individual, and hence are not established. A solitary 
savage need not intellectually master his experience till he 
requires to make it known to others. Once he is in social 
relations, it becomes necessary for him to bring his experience 
into a shape which others can recognise. Thought is a 
social function. Language is a social product. Man would 
imagine, feel, if his habit of life were unsocial, but he would 
not take the trouble to think. Thought is social in its origin : 
secondarily, at a later stage, it becomes individual. 

Speech arises for us in connexion with thought, not with 
feeling. Inarticulate expression of feeling is not speech. 
We need speech to describe feeling, but not to express it. In 
the beginning it was, as I have said, in the act of thinking 
that man was necessarily led to speak, and a nation's 
language tells you what that nation can think. The word- 
symbol, in regard to thought, is just what is wanted to supply 
definiteness in the absence of the image. Thought is so 
much dependent upon speech, that it can come to be studied 
by way of speech, and can be regulated (in Logic) through 
its expression. Thought must be expressed before it can 
be regulated in name, proposition, and syllogism. 

Speech Educates and Extends Thought. 

Once made, and found ready-made, speech becomes a 
means for developing the faculty of thought. Children do 
not go through the natural psychological development; 
they do not get the chance. They find the vehicle of 
their thought ready-made. Yet we can see in them and 



xxvil] Elements of Psychology. 183 

their early attempts at speech the actual creative instinct, 
showing still the fact of spontaneity, out of which language 
originally grew. 

Although language arises from the need of thought, yet 
once there, we use it to express not only concepts, judgments, 
and reasonings, but also percepts and images. We perceive 
all the better because of our naming. For perceiving, 
though it may attain a rudimentary stage without language, 
requires in its developed form the aid of language. Thorough 
perception is really intentest thought^ thought concentrated, 
brought to a point, a condensed essence of thinking more 
complex than the bare percept. Every fully developed 
percept is potentially a general thought, and speech becomes 
necessary for effective perceiving, which to all intents and 
purposes is thinking. 

Intellection is dependent upon Speech in proportion as it is General. 

Within a certain range, then, there is a possibility of 
thought apart from speech, yet unquestionably it must be 
allowed that thought as general, as re-representative, is 
dependent upon speech. Or, if exception be found to this 
statement, we can at least commit ourselves definitely to this, 
that according as thought becomes more general, it becomes 
more dependent on its conjunction with speech. It is 
impossible to work out the psychology of thought without 
consideration of the psychology of speech. In a certain 
sense all thought involves some kind of language. Thinking 
and speaking are the same things on different sides, speech 
being the effective expression of thought. For the saying 
'Without speech no thought' we may substitute 'Without 
speech no effective thought/ Verbal marks or s'gns in the 
case of simple concepts are useful; in the higher forms of 



184 Elements of Psychology. 

thought they are indispensable, and are more absolutely so 
the higher we go. There is no question but that speech was 
absolutely necessary for the communication of thought which 
is a purely subjective function ; but, on closer investigation, 
it is seen that the power of progressive re-representation 
also depends on the using of some fixed and definite expres- 
sion, with which to build up the more complex structures. 



For Lecture XXVIII read : — 

Bain, pp. 18, note; 215-225; Hoffding, VI, A, §§ 1, 2, D. 

Also cf. Sully, Outlines 0/ Psychology, p. 315 ; or The Human Mind, 
xiii. 2 0. 



LECTURE XXVIII. 

FEELING AS SUBJECTIVE AFFECTION. 

Subjective experience in the truest sense is Feeling. 

It remains for us to consider the other two phases of mind, 
Feeling and Conation. Conation cannot be understood or 
defined without express reference to Feeling. There is no 
psychology of Conation except in relation to a psychology of 
Feeling. Some even contend that Will is but a special mode 
of Feeling. (Cf. Spencer, Principles of Psychology : — l The 
Composition of Mind.') We may go so far as to admit, that 
so far as anything is willed, it is willed by reference to 
Feeling. Hence of the two we do best to consider Feeling 
first. 

Feeling is the name in modern psychology for any conscious 
experience that is adequately expressed as a state of the subject, 
or a subjective state. It may be objected, that there is no 
conscious experience that may not be described in these terms, 
but the answer is, To that extent that conscious experience is 
Feeling. Does the term 'subjective state' adequately describe 
a fact of Intellection, or a fact of Conation ? My perception 
of that pillar, my wish to open that door — can either of these 
experiences be said to be fully expressed as a subjective 
state of mind, or the most characteristic part of them be said 
to be brought out? Not so. We can understand why 
Mr. Spencer and Lewes have used Feeling as equivalent to 



i86 Elements of Psychology. [Icct. 

conscious experience, even if we do not approve of it. We 
use it in a more specific way, holding that whenever we g?t a 
fact of consciousness which is adequately, most characteristi- 
cally, expressed as state of subject or subjective state, then we 
are dealing with something that may properly be called 
Feeling \ 

Evolution of the Term. 

We have seen already (Lect. IV), that if the word Feeling 
is by some extended far beyond our definition, on the other 
hand it has also been limited to less than that, viz. in the 
popular sense, to mean active touch. This usage will not 
easily drop out, and indeed it is the only meaning found in some 
psychological books. Locke, e. g. — who based his philosophic 
thought so much on psychology, as to be called the Father of 
Psychology — in his Essay concerning Human Understanding 
(1690), uses Feeling in the sense of touch, and in that sense 
only. Feeling in its modern psychological sense came into use 
in the course of the eighteenth century, not only in English, but 
also in other languages, e.g. Gefiihl in Germany, sensibiliie in 
France, since the middle of the eighteenth century. It marks 
a whole range of experience previously referred to in a much 
less definite manner and in very different language. Before that 
time mind had been viewed only as an aggregate of faculties 
or powers, distinguished as intellectual and active. Feeling 
was not passed over, but was subordinated to Intellection or 
Conation. The psychologist of chief importance who helped 

1 It is Feeling which comes nearest to justifying the phrase * state 
of consciousness,' to which some prefer c presentation/ There may 
be a doubt as to the adequacy of the former term in the case of 
Willing and Intellection, but not as to its fittingness in the case 
of Feeling. If in Intellection and Conation we are to some extent 
active ; in Feeling we are passive. 



xxviil] Elements of Psychology. 187 

to fix the word in its modern psychological sense, was Hume 
(circa 1740). A few years earlier, however, Butler in his ser- 
mons had approximated to modern scientific usage. By the 
beginning of this century it had passed into literature, e.g. 
Wordsworth opposes Feeling as a state of mind to Knowledge, 
or the intellectual attitude. 

Feeling as such involves no Apprehension of Object. 

Pleasure, pain, interest, worth, value, are all words that we 
may employ to express experiences of Feeling as distinct 
from Intellection. • I am affected — somehow ' is one fact of 
mind ; * I am intellectually active ' is another. If anything is to 
be excepted to in the current threefold division of mind, about 
Feeling, i.e. subjective affection, at any rate there is no question. 
If, however, we are considering any kind of mental experience 
that does not admit of being easily and directly re-expressed as 
a bare affection of subject, then we may be sure that we are 
dealing with something other than simple Feeling. E.g. in 
the typical case of the pricked finger, you may have pure pain, 
or you may have pain plus perception. In every case of 
Intellection, we are intellective about something which is 
object in relation to subject, but pure pain is different. I say 
that Intellection always involves apprehension of object, i.e. 
of object by subject. Remember that we cannot cut out 
the subject from any mental experience. Into percep'ion 
there enters subjective impression, for it is based upon 
sensation. And the fact that subjective affection is involved 
enables us to regard perception also as a state of subject. 
Can we be subjectively affected in thinking of * statesman ' ? 
Yes ; in as far as we are thinking now differently from how 
we were thinking before, in as far as our thinking is a change 
of subject consciousness, just so far may concepts (viewed 



188 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

as changes of subject) be regarded as subjective affections of 
a kind. Mr. Spencer, in widening the meaning of Feeling, 
opposes to feelings relations among feelings. But a relation 
among feelings is only a feeling of a peculiar kind. This 
strengthens the idea, that, to the extent that we regard mind 
as resolvable (for purposes of Psychology) into mental states, 
to that extent there is no mental state that we cannot call 
a Feeling, i.e. essentially a subjective state or affection. 

Feeling the most Pervasive Phase. 

We may arrive at a corresponding result by another way. 
Nothing is more noticeable and familiar to us in the way of 
conscious experience than what we call pleasure and pain. 
From the very dawn of consciousness we find both of them 
manifested : they are the best terms to describe what our 
consciousness then is. If from the very beginning the child 
were not to some extent intellective and conative as well 
as sensitive (understanding 'sensitive' as the adjective 
corresponding to Feeling), he would never become either 
intellective or conative. But we maintain that one primary 
characteristic of human consciousness may at one time pre- 
dominate; and consciousness at first is predominantly sensitive, 
i.e. pleasurable and painful. 

Sense and Feeling. 

Sense, as we understood it, was a stage of mind at which all 
three phases are manifest. The fact that we fall back on the 
word ' sensitive/ as corresponding to intellective and conative, 
the fact that the French distinguish between sensibilite 'and 
sensation, points to a kind of connexion between feeling 
and sense. 

Whether there is any feeling besides pleasure and pain, all 



xxvill.] Elements of Psychology. 189 

pleasures and pains must be described psychologically as 
feeling. This statement is not at variance with our other 
statement, that feeling is a state of subject. Nothing can 
be more properly described as subjective states than pleasure 
and pain. A pleasure is always 'of Me/ and so is pain. 
There is a distinct reference to subjectivity. 

Emotional Values. 

Do pleasures and pains, then, make up the whole of feeling ? 
In answering that question I want to bring forward one aspect 
of pleasure and pain only. They are experiences to which we 
can attach the notion of Value. There is no feeling proper 
that we cannot regard as having a certain worth, or value, 
for the subject, either positive or negative. By positive and 
negative value I mean of course pleasure and pain. Are there 
then any feelings that have neither a positive nor a negative value? 
Professor Bain maintains, there are some that are neutral, 
being neither pleasure nor pain, whereas Professor Sully does 
not hesitate to say, that all pleasures have a positive value, all 
pains a negative value, the two being divided by a zero point. 

Is there a Zero Point? 

I wish to combine both positions. Professor Bain instances a 
large number of experiences that may be adequately described 
as subjective states, and yet have no marked character either 
pleasurable or painful, both sensations — e.g. tastes, which are 
neither, such as alkaline tastes — and emotions, e.g. surprises, 
which are neither. Now although we are bound to admit that a 
great deal of properly subjective experience is neither pleasur- 
able nor painful, yet when we regard such experiences from the 
standard of positive and negative values, we find that in this 
respect they are not at zero. If we ask, what is their several 



190 Elements of Psychology. 

effect on the subject in such a state ? is the conscious life of 
the subject raised or depressed thereby ? — then if we can find 
the smallest degree of elevation or depression, we have a suffi- 
cient reason for grouping them about the zero point or line. 
And the fact that it is a mere point or line comes out if 
we attend to the fact, that many states are complex, partly 
pleasurable, partly painful, and that certain states sometimes 
appear to us as pleasure and at other times as pain. 

This bears against Professor Bain's view. But further, of 
the range of sensitive experiences which he interpolates between 
pleasure and pain, we can merely say that they are different 
from one another, e.g. salt and alkaline. That is to say, in 
order to describe his neutral feelings, Professor Bain has to 
fall back on intellection. He says, the neutral states of feel- 
ing form for us the transition between intellection and feeling : 
intellection and feeling meet in neutral feelings which may be 
described as different one from another. This is interesting, 
but does not streng hen his case, viz., that these intermediate 
stages are neutral fee lings. 

I say, then, that feeling on the one hand is subjective, and 
on the other has a value, positive or negative, for the system, 
even if that value may not appear in consciousness as 
pleasurable or painful. Nobody says, that all pleasures and 
pains are equally the one or the other. Is there anything 
more than a difference of degree? I do not think there is 
anything more. 



For Lecture XXIX read : — 
Hoffding, VI, A, §§ 3, 4 J Spencer Pt. VI, ch. xviii ; Pt. IX, ch. iv. 



LECTURE XXIX. 

FEELING AND INTELLECTION. EXPRESSION. SENSE-FEELING. 

Antithesis between Feeling and Intellection shoivn. 

We saw that, according to Professor Bain, feeling and 
intellection come together in the neutral feelings. How are 
they brought together ? How are they distinguished ? 

(a) Psychologically. 

Take a needle and bring it gently into contact with the 
skin. Of what are we conscious ? We are intellective ; we 
say it is something sharp ; we perceive it for what it is. But 
suppose the needle is run in. Our consciousness assumes 
the aspect of feeling ; we are pained. Is our state now to be 
described as essentially subjective? Yes, /am pained, and 
I do not care whether by a needle or anything else. Here 
we have the distinction between intellection and feeling 
brought to a point. In the first case I am distinctly per- 
ceptive, not considering Myself in the case at all. In the 
second case / am painfully affected, and care about nothing 
else. 

(6) Physiologically. 

Or take the side of the physical conditions. When we are 
perceiving the needle as a sharp point, the defmiteness and 
directness of the nerve-process is predominant. The stimulus 



192 Elements of Psychology. [Lect 

is sent in by a certain line and comes out as a direct overt 
muscular activity (in slightly pressing on the needle's point). 
First and last, this process is carried on with definiteness and 
limitation. But in the case of the needle run in, is there this 
intent attitude ? On the contrary, the salient feature is that 
consciousness is so painful as not to be definite. This 
stimulus goes in in a more magnified way. There is disin- 
tegration of the nerve, hence a much more intense nervous 
disturbance. The overt impulse is now exhibited in drawing 
the hand back, or even both hands, or in starting away, or 
even, if the subject be hyper-sensitive, in swooning. Seeing 
then that action, in the case of feeling is of a widespread, 
expanding character, in the case of intellection is definite, we 
may say that the salient feature of feeling is Diffusion or 
Irradiation. We use the word ' diffusion ' to mark the nature of 
the bodily process involved in this feeling. The definiteness 
and limitation characterising perception on the physiological 
side are just those that are missing in feeling. Consciousness 
is not wholly engrossed with the perceptual impression; 
or if perception prove wholly engrossing, it is in part due to 
feeling. And the adjusted activity put forth is a very small 
part of the exertion that might be made. But when, on 
occasion of feeling, a wave of excitation reaches the brain, 
it is diffused over various parts of it, so that the outgoing 
impulse is on a great variety of lines and not on a single 
line. If we see two men shooting other two men down, we 
get into a very intense state of activity; we may run to 
intervene, or shout for help, using our muscles in a much 
more extended way than in simple perception. Again, in 
a state of feeling not only is there overt impulse over the 
external muscles, but certain of the internal or visceral organs 
are brought into play, viz. the heart, which though decidedly 



xxix.] Elements of Psychology. 193 

muscular yet does not display its action overtly, and hence 
may be called visceral ; also the digestive system generally, 
e.g. the mouth becomes dry and digestion and secretion are 
affected ; in the case of grief or fear the viscera and the whole 
glandular system are brought into play. 

How does this happen? It must be through the brain. 
Every part of the body is physiologically represented in the 
brain, i. e. represented by certain nerve-lines. Let these 
parts of the brain be aroused and the organs too will be 
aroused, the connexion between brain and internal organs 
being effected by a second nervous system called .the Sympa- 
thetic nervous system. This is to a certain extent independent 
of the other or Cerebral nervous system, so that e.g. the 
heart functions apart from our volition, yet the two systems 
are connected at certain points, and thus the one can be 
affected by way of the other. Thus popular language, 
assigning to the heart the same relation to Feeling that the 
brain has to Intellection, is wrong. The heart is worked by 
a distinct self-contained nervous centre, yet is connected with 
the brain and the cerebro-spinal system through the pneumo- 
gastric nerve which is the means of regulating its action. 

Feeling, then, is a state of subject, whatever else it is, and 
one that involves affection of the whole organism, whereas 
intellection, though it too is subjective, is not adequately 
expressed as a state of subject, and affects, as such, not the 
whole organism, but only certain nerve-lines. 

Expression of Feeling. 

The phrases used in the books : — ' play of feeling/ ' ex- 
pression of emotion/ or, by Mr. Spencer *, ' language of the 

1 Principles of Psychology, Part IX, ch. iv. 



194 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

emotions/ all mark the special connexion of feeling with 
processes of active self-manifestation. ' Language' is perhaps 
too metaphorical. 'Expression/ meaning something squeezed 
out, forced out, best ' expresses ' what we wish to convey, 
although there is no objection to ' play/ In its more general 
sense ' expression' is something that is essentially peculiar to 
feeling, because it is the organic change, going along with 
feeling, which is manifested ; yet the narrower meaning of the 
word ' express ' may also be understood in regard to feeling. 
Even Mr. Spencer's word ' language ' may be justified from 
a certain point of view. Is intellection a subjective process 
that is devoid of expression ? No, some intellection does 
not proceed without expression. Thought, as opposed to 
bare imagining, is a kind of intellection that depends on 
a system of expression, and the most convenient kind is 
language. But language is the putting forth of certain 
muscular activity. Is that muscular activity also involved 
in feeling ? Yes, e. g. in a cry. The cry as expressive of 
feeling is different from the expression of thought, but both 
involve the same organs, both are ' expression,' both can be 
called ' language.' But the action that goes on in the throat 
in feeling is only a fraction of the work of expression, whereas 
in intellection it is practically the whole. In intellection ex- 
pression is definite, restricted ; one word rather than another ; 
'pillar' not ' chair.' In feeling the cry is a part of the general 
diffusion, of the great nervous disturbance which first finds 
vent in a cry. 

Feeling and Art. 

The expression of emotion is of fundamental importance 
for fine art. In painting the artist portrays feeling. He 
figures the human body in a certain attitude, but if we 



xxix.] Elements of Psychology. 195 

had not certain modes of expression for certain emotions, 
he could not picture them. His portrayal, however, is only 
muscular or external. He can only represent grief by 
drooping and tears, the beating heart by the hand pressed 
over it. But the poet is less restricted. He can make 
reference to internal processes of expression and say, 
1 Beating heart, be still.' 

Classes of Feeling, 

There is, in fact, nothing we are so familiar with as Ex- 
pression of Feeling, so much so that we only know people 
are feeling in so far as they express it, and hence we come 
to identify the expression with the feeling. Different kinds 
of feeling have different expressions; nay, more, we find 
a generic difference between the expression of the feeling 
of pleasure and that of the feeling of pain, the one having 
an expansive, the other a depressing tendency. Now if, 
in the case of anything we can call Feeling, we have reason 
to suppose that whenever a subject is feeling there is called 
into play a whole range of organic seats either muscular 
or visceral, and that of these seats each may be said to have 
some kind of sensibility of its own, we can then understand 
how Feeling is something of a very complex character ; and 
the question arises as to how far our feeling is made up of, 
or rather is coloured and modified by, the separate sensibilities 
aroused in the case. And there is no doubt that our feeling 
has relation to the sensibility of these different seats. Again, 
if we find different feelings in consciousness accompanied 
by different manifestations, i. e. different seats involved, or 
different actions in the same seat, we come to understand how 
through the manifestation of different feelings we distinguish 
feelings in terms of their constituent factors. Accordingly, 

2 



196 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

in any psychological account of Feeling, and more especially 
of Emo:ion, the organic seat and bodily manifestation in- 
volved form a very important part to be considered. This is 
the merit of Professor Bain's method. 

Now feelings fall into two main classes, which may be 
described as Sense-feelings and Emotions, 

Sense-feelings. 

There is not one of the senses that does not, or is not 
liable to, give us experiences that are most naturally and 
adequately expressed as subjective state with either a positive 
or a negative value, causing elevation or depression, pleasure 
or pain. And hence we are justified in distinguishing a class 
of Sense-feelings. Within the region of sense, some sensa- 
tions may be described as feeling, as pleasurable or painful, 
more markedly than others which are of more account for 
intellection. 

Sense as Feeling. 

It will be remembered that we ordered the senses from the 
point of view of their speciality and their value for perception. 
If we now seek to order them as having the character of feeling, 
we are confronted with the difficulty of having to choose as our 
standard either pleasure or pain. Organic sensibility can be 
described in terms of feeling better than in terms of intellection, 
but it is of much more value to us as pain. One simple 
definite scheme seems impossible ; the order of feelings for 
pain would not be the same as the order of feelings for pleasure. 
But in any sense we can distinguish between the quality and 
quantity of feeling ; and one kind of quantity that all feelings 
have is intensity. And just as we can describe all feeling 
quantitatively in terms of intensity, so we can distinguish 



xxix.] Elements of Psychology. 197 

qualitatively what Germans call the 'feeling-tone' and its 
sensation. 



For Lecture XXX read : — 

Hoffding, VI, B ; Darwin, Expression of the Emotions, ch. i — ill, xiv; 
Spencer, Part IX, ch. iv 

Also cf. Sully, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 353, 354 ; or The Human 
Mind, xiv, § 26. 

Clark Murray's Handbook of Psychology on the Emotions is very 
good. 



LECTURE XXX. 

EMOTION. 

Emotions as distinguished from Sense-feelings, 

Emotions are feelings. When we talk about ' the feelings/ 
we first mean the emotions, but what are the emotions in 
relation to the sense-feelings? Sense-feelings are feelings 
arising on occasion of peripheral stimulation of afferent 
nerve-fibres. Emotions are not so, or need not be so. Even 
when emotions proceed by way of sense-stimulus, the latter 
is the least important part of the whole, whereas in sense- 
feeling it is the most important. E. g. fear is a very simple 
emotion, differing from sense-feeling. In the feeling accom- 
panying the prick of a needle there is definite nerve-stimulus. 
There may be external stimulus when we are afraid, but it is, 
as such, of subordinate importance. What puts me in a state 
of fear is not the mere sight of tiger or pistol, but what the 
sight of either suggests to me in the way of representation of 
what may happen to me. These are cases of fear suggested 
or stimulated from without, but the stimulation is subordinate. 
I may at this moment be afraid of something that I have to do 
to-morrow. Here the emotion is wholly suggested by repre- 
sentation. To a certain extent therefore Mr. Spencer's dis- 
tinction between sense-feelings and emotions holds good. He 
says, that sense-feelings are peripherally initiated by nerve-fibres, 
whereas emotions are centrally initiated. Now as representa- 



Elements of Psychology. 199 

tion is a something that goes on in consciousness and the 
physiological concomitant is a cerebral process, the fact that 
cerebral process (on the physiological side) is the characteristic 
feature of emotion, and the fact that external stimulus is the 
characteristic feature of sense-feeling, support Mr. Spencer in 
his distinction between emotions and sense-feelings, although 
there may be an element of stimulus in emotion. Emotions, 
then, even the very simplest, by comparison with sense- 
feelings, have a character of representativeness. 

This is so much the case, that in marking off emotion 
from sense-feeling, we find in the latter a nearer approach 
to purely presentative experience than is yielded by the in- 
tellectual aspect of sensations. We found that sensation was 
an abstraction, representing no actual fact of experience — 
since every sensation that we have always involves repre- 
sentation, and, as such, is to be described as percept — but 
we do find at the threshold of life, such marked experience 
of pain and pleasure on occasion of peripheral stimulation, 
that we seem to get nearer to genuine presentative experience 
than in any other phase of life. 

Emotion in connexion with Sense-feeling, 

Emotion may always be described as ' centrally-initiated ' 
feeling, even when peripheral initiation is involved. This 
ought not to surprise us. There is intellection which un- 
questionably involves even developed representation or 
thought, and yet which is, in a way, ' peripherally initiated ' 
perception. Perception can never be accounted for by sense 
only, or anything presentative only : it must involve some 
representation, or even re-representation. We cannot do 
without sense-experience in perception, but it may be a very 
minor element, and may be almost entirely subordinated, 



200 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

in comparison with the amount of representation involved. 
So also emotions can be regarded as centrally initiated, even 
when they involve peripheral initiation. I am not trying to 
make out a special relation between emotion and perception, 
or that emotion is on the same level with perception as of 
account for intellection. We get emotions at different grades 
corresponding to all the grades of intellection. 

Emotion and ' being moved.' 

Emotion in itself means ' movement out of/ It may have 
come to be used for a large class of feelings, chiefly because 
of the peculiarity of feelings in having a very definite expres- 
sion in the way of muscular movement. This may have 
been the reason, was probably the chief reason, why the word 
emotion was coined to mark feeling. In justification of this, 
there is hardly any other adjective besides 'emotional' to 
correspond to feeling. In its adjectival form, therefore, 
emotion has a wider psychological meaning than as a substan- 
tive. When Professor Bain, for example, considers sensations 
as sense-feelings, he is considering them in their ' emotional 
aspect/ 

We can speak, of course, of being € moved ' subjectively : 
I mean, without overt muscular movement. This is, of course, 
metaphorical. By saying ' I am moved at the news/ a person 
means that he is undergoing a certain kind of experience 
that involves his whole being. Note this in connexion with 
feeling as state of subject-as-a- whole. Feeling is first ' state 
of subject/ next it is ' being moved/ Perhaps the dual fact 
that we are both moved and apt to be motor originated the 
expression ' emotion/ In intellection we are not moved ; in 
volition we are not moved so much as moving. But the 
word 'emotion' suggests just that fact of accompanying 



xxx.] Elements of Psychology. 201 

expression which is so characteristic of emotion, viz. that 
1 moving out/ or becoming manifest by outward expression. 
It is really emotions rather than sense-feelings which have 
most distinctive expressions. These it is important to study 
in the researches of Darwin and Mr. Spencer. The sup- 
position of the latter is that Emotion and its expression arose 
together, but how we are not in a position to say. How 
particular emotions have particular expressions, how far 
emotion and its expression may be regarded as one fact or 
as two different facts, how far we can say that the expression 
of feeling is, in the full and proper sense, instinctive, we 
can only understand by studying Instinct. 

Again, is it possible to feel and not to express it ? And is 
it possible to express and not really to feel ? There is no 
doubt that the object of a part of education is to compass the 
repression of expression to a certain extent. Also it is evident 
that actors, both professional and hypocritical, to a great 
extent express without really feeling. But both these state- 
ments must be made within certain limits, for the two are not 
accidental facts and separable; the expression to all intents and 
purposes enters into the very make of feeling. We all more 
or less suppress our feelings ; we do not always cry when we 
are sad, and so on : but it is the overt manifestation which 
we do restrain, and we often find those people the most grieved 
who suppress it the most, and that too with effects which may 
influence the bodily organs even to death. Suppression of ex- 
pression then is only partial, and does not prove expression 
separate from emotion. Again, in the case of an actor acting 
fear, he may have only a partial expression — no parched 
tongue, no increased pulse, &c. If he have none of these he 
does not fully embody the emotion as did Mrs. Siddons, who 
seems actually through her whole organism to have felt what 



202 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

she acted, as e.g. Lady Macbeth in her remorse. There is no 
haphazard association ; into the very make of feelings enters 
the expression of them. 

Evolution of the term Emotion, 
Emotion has really come into use very late. It began 
to get used in the last century by Hume ; he uses ' emotions ' 
as alternative to ' passions ' or ' affections/ but has no section 
on 'feeling/ 'Affection' has dropped out of psychology, 
except in the wider, generic sense of 'being affected/ 
in which it is not limited to a class of feelings; and ex- 
cept in the specific sense of the kind of emotion otherwise 
called 'love/ 'Passion' was formerly used for emotion or 
feeling in general, as emphasising the fact that then the 
subject is passively affected, patient \ or moved. In later 
psychology it has come to express more specifically an 
emotion of a certain fixity of type. Popular usage restricts 
passion to anger, as it restricts affection to love. More 
specifically still, passion in modern psychology means ' hate ' 
as the passive counterpart to anger. Hate is a permanent 
emotional disposition. The frequent recurrence of anger 
in regard to an object results in hating. Love, again, is 
a passion, rather than an emotion; it does not express 
a passing state, but a fixed disposition. Love as passion arises 
from tenderness or tender emotion. In modern psychological 
usage passion is a special development of emotion. 

Emotion and Sentiment. 
The word that first came into use as descriptive of all 
feelings that are not sense-feelings, was 'sentiment/ The 
fact that sentiment and sensations come from the same 
root shows the fundamental relation of sense-feelings and 
emotions. Sentiment should not be dropped as superseded 



xxx.] Elements of Psychology. 203 

by emotion. But sentiment, as now used in psychology, 
is apt to be restricted to some of the most highly developed 
of the emotions, e. g. the moral sentiment; it has drifted from 
the simpler grades of emotion and become attached to those 
grades which are farthest removed from sense \ 

Nature of Emotional Representation. 

Whenever we are dealing with emotion proper, as opposed 
to sense-feeling, we have something essentially complex to 
take account of. Emotion, we said, involves ' ideation' or 
representation. What is the characteristic of emotional repre- 
sentation ? Our representing has then a certain character of 
confusion or vagueness. If I get in fear at sight of a tiger 
and not at sight of a dog, it is because, whereas I can 
represent in a certain definite fashion what the dog can do, 
in the case of the tiger I imagine something that may happen, 
but has not yet happened to me, which is thus confused and 
vague. But in an emotion I not only represent vaguely and 
confusedly, but I am also representing past feelings — con- 
fused representations, e.g., of all the dangers of all the simdar 
circumstances in which I have been before. 

Racial Emotional Experience. 

From childhood upwards we have all now and again been 
in states of fear, which have modified our states of fear 
afterwards. Fear, however, not to mention other emotions, 
is found in children before they have had actual experience 
of danger. Here is something that we come better now to 
understand from the point of view known as that of evolution, 
where we no longer regard the individual as starting from 
himself, but, on the physical side, starting with an inherited 

1 Cf. its use in Professor Sully's psychological works. 



204 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

organisation and on the mental side with certain predis* 
positions — predispositions which we simply assume as such, 
as once innate ideas w r ere assumed, and which we seek to 
determine in actual experience, not of self, but of ancestry. If 
a child is afraid, e. g. of a tiger, and expresses its fear in the 
way it is expressed by adults, and for that matter by the lower 
animals, the confused vague consciousness of the child is a 
reproduction, or representation, not of experience that it has 
had, but of experience that its ancestry, human or otherwise, 
has had before it. It is upon this fact of a certain uniformity 
in the manifestations not only of presentative feelings, but also 
of presentative-representative feelings, from the first, that 
Mr. Spencer rested his opposition to the view confining the 
development of emotion within the life of the individual. 
Unless we suppose that men are made so — which cuts the 
matter short — there is no other view to be adduced than 
that of development of manifestation extending over the 
experience of the race. The moment we entertain this view 
of the peculiarity of certain emotions — and not only sense- 
feelings — manifesting themselves at the beginning of life, we 
get a certain ground of explanation. 

We can indeed, I think, make out far more positively in 
regard to feeling that it is inherited than we can in regard 
to intellection. Of course, if we can make it out in regard to 
feeling, Mr. Spencer might urge, and very properly too, that 
the whole point is conceded, in regard namely to cognitions 
as well. And I believe there are intellectual predispositions 
and dispositions in different individuals. But the case is still 
stronger for feelings. 

The explanation of the origin of the uniform expressions 
of these inherited emotional experiences is, as will be seen in 
the passages set from Darwin and Mr. Spencer, that those 



xxx.] Elements of Psychology. 205 

expressions were not arbitrary, but productive of a beneficial 
effect in preserving the life of the individual, that they became 
fixed by natural selection and were thus propagated. And it 
has been shown that a great many of our emotional expres- 
sions are instincts in the true sense of the word, i. e. untaught 
aptitudes beneficial, at least originally, to life. 



For Lecture XXXI read : — 

Bain, pp. 226-283, 75-81 ; Appendix, 89-91 ; HofTding, VI, C, E,F; 
Spencer, Part IX, ch. ii ; II, ch. ix. 

Also cf. Bain, The Emotions, &c, pp. 35-189; The Senses, &c, 
pp. 282-306. 

The Classification of Emotions attempted by Mercier {Mind, ix, x) 
is very good, and only fails because it attempts the impossible. 



Note. — Recent discussion on the relation of emotion to the bodily 
disturbances felt at the time (the so-called corporeal or somatic 
resonance, organic reverberation, &c.) is summarised in Professor 
Sully's The Human Mind vol. ii, p. 58. — Ed. 



LECTURE XXXI. 

CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE EMOTIONS. EXPLANATIONS OF PLEASURE 

AND PAIN. 

It is easy to give a classification of sense-feelings, but 
much less so in the case of emotions. We can connect the 
former with the given stimulated periphery, eye, ear, &c. 
It is one thing to give an account of the senses, another to 
give an account of the sense-feelings from the emotional point 
of view. But there is no difficulty in proceeding in the case 
of sense-feelings. To the extent that emotion involves 
intellectual representation we find that we are no longer 
able to proceed with the same definiteness. To classify the 
emotions would be to give a complete classification of 
the kinds of intellectual representation had by us. But in 
psychology we deal only with the laws, not the kinds, of 
representation. And if classification be difficult where re- 
presentation is definite, how much more difficult where 
representation is vague, as in the case of emotion. 

Criticism of Mr. Spencers Classification. 
Can we then do nothing to classify emotions? In 
intellection we not only discover laws of representation, but we 
also distinguish intellection at different stages of development 
in the amount of representation involved. It was possible 
therefore in dealing with intellection to get this kind of classifi- 
cation of our intellectual experience. Now Mr. Spencer 



Elements of Psychology. 207 

says, that we can extend this scheme to emotion or to feel- 
ing generally, viz. — Presentative, Presentative-Representative, 
Representative and Re-representative Feelings. 

^Esthetic feeling, moral feeling, the sense of property, 
viz. of what money, a landed estate, can do for us — these 
kinds of feeling are re-representative. 

For representative feeling take mere sympathy for the 
grief of another. This will depend on our power of repre- 
senting what is going on in the mind of that person. 

Fear of a tiger, anger, the sense or feeling of power, are 
w r ell expressed in their general character as presentative- 
representative. 

Presentative feeling is sense-feeling. We maintained that 
in sense-feeling as manifested at the beginning of life we 
had something in consciousness corresponding to ' Pre- 
sentative/ A child is affected by a prick apart from any 
representation involved. 

There are a good many objections to the scheme. It is 
good in that it takes in the whole scope of emotion. But 
if we were asked under what head any particular feeling had 
to be put it would be very difficult. E. g. fear of a tiger 
is presentative-representative, but fear of dying in a work- 
house is different ; hence fear has no fixed place. Any 
emotion might come under the last three heads. 

Criticism of Professor Bain's Classification. 

Professor Bain tries to classify the emotions on the basis 
of progressive complexity, but his exposition amounts to 
little more than a falling back, as in despair, on mere enu- 
meration of the main types. The resulting defect is that 
we do not know why it leaves off where it does; we can 
conceive it extended almost without limit. In his Emotions 



208 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

and the Will, he departs from this view in a certain advan- 
tageous way. In his M anual he may be said to have conceived 
all emotion as altogether developed within the life of the 
individual. But in the Emotions and the Will, he makes 
a considerable allowance for simple emotions manifest from 
the beginning of life, e. g. love, fear, anger, viewed as perfectly 
simple emotions, coming from the experience of the race. 
He is thus able to order the other emotions from the point of 
view of the progressive life of the individual. But are these 
three all? Is not the feeling of power also fundamental? 
Every child, however young, that is able to put forth activity 
takes pleasure in so doing, and tends to put it forth because 
of the pleasure. 

Professor Bain also brings forward one point of very great 
importance in the account in the Manual, and that is the 
separate grouping of * Emotions of Relativity/ These with 
him have a certain standing, apart from the order of the 
other emotions viewed as progressively complex. Professor 
Hoffding also (in Section VI, E, of his Psychology) brings 
under the head of Relativity several of the most developed 
of what Mr. Spencer calls Re-representative Feelings, e.g. 
^Esthetic feelings of the sublime, feeling of the ludicrous, &c. 

The Emolions have been classified also according as the 
representative element involved in them has reference to 
past, present, or future. This scheme has no adequate 
psychological foundation and gives but an artificial division. 

Professor Hoffding s Scheme. 

The division given by Professor Hoffding (Section VI, C) 
I commend to the notice of students. This is an attempt to 
view Emotions with regard to self and other selves, viz. 
Egoistic feeling concentrated round self, and Sympathetic 



xxxl] Elements of Psychology. 209 

feeling concentrated on others, the word Sympathetic being 
taken in its wide sense. The distinction between Self and 
non-Self is one that very soon comes into consciousness, and 
is at the base of our whole view of things. Hence, as far 
as Emotions can be made out to be connected with Self, 
or with Emotions of other Selves, like Self, we get a dis- 
tinction of real psychological import. But ' egoistic ' and 
'sympathetic' have also an ethical value as being superior 
or inferior in respect of what is Good or Right. Ethics 
is largely concerned with Egoism and Altruism. This 
relation we must abandon in dealing with Emotion. Both 
are equally respectable in Psychology, both are used for 
purposes of distinction \ 

The Futility and Needlessness of Classifying Emotions. 

There is really no need for Psychology to attempt an 
exhaustive classification of the emotions, any more than to 
attempt to set forth a detailed list of representations. Pro- 
fessor Bain's ten classes do not by any means exhaust the 
emotions ; further, by dividing them according to increasing 
complexity, he cuts himself off from the possibility of 
developing each of the emotions. Fear, for instance, is 
classified as the simplest of emotions, whereas it may take 

1 Mr. Spencer, from another point of view, also distinguishes feel- 
ings as Egoistic, Ego-altruistic, and Altruistic (Part IX, ch. vi-viii) — 
a distinction which, while it has necessarily a valid psychological 
basis, as has been pointed out above, is made chiefly from the point 
of view of biological evolution, viz. that every organism has two 
fundamental functions, self-preservation and reproduction. Egoistic 
feelings are those concerned with the conservation of individuals ; 
the altruistic feelings are to be referred to the propagation of the 
species. Then by cross-representation there arise finally the ego- 
altruistic feelings, ' which, while implying self-gratification, also imply 
gratification in others.' 



210 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

the most complex forms. Compare the fear of a father 
lest his children should come to want. In this respect 
Mr. Spencer's classification is better. And yet we have 
never really had a proper classification of actual cognitions 
under four classes. For any detailed classification of them 
we should have to go out to the Object-world and to the 
objective sciences. If, for instance, we want to know about 
space, we go to mathematics. If psychologists nevertheless 
persist in giving a detailed account of the emotions, with- 
out attempting to do so in the case of cognitions, they are 
not without justification, since the emotions can find no 
explanation in other sciences as cognitions do; they are 
purely subjective, and if the pyschologist did not give an 
account of them, no one else could. Cognitions take us 
from Subject to Object; not so the emotions. For this 
reason no classification that has ever been made is wholly 
satisfactory to any one but the author; and, since into 
emotions enter representations, and these are almost infinite, 
the fact can excite no wonder. 

The Resolution of Pleasure and Pain. 

Pleasure and pain, although reference to them is necessary 
in describing feeling, are not of use for classifying feeling. 
The psychological understanding of what pleasure and pain 
are cannot be had except in reference to the effect of 
pleasure and pain on human activity. It is thus, therefore, 
that we pass over to Conation. 

But first consider the great discussion, from Aristotle 
downwards, on what we mean by pleasure and pain. 
Aristotle suggests that pleasure accompanies all those 
activities that go on in the organism in a normal fashion, 
and pain all those activities that do not. With this let us 



xxxl] Elements of Psychology. 211 

compare Mr. Spencer's dictum : — Pains are the correlatives 
of actions injurious to the organism. Pleasures are the cor- 
relatives of actions conducive to its welfare. ' Actions ' here 
are effects wrought on the body from without. But on this 
question Professor Bain is the most suggestive : — ' States of 
pleasure are connected with an increase, and states of pain 
with an abatement, of some or all of the vital functions/ 
constituting the law of Self-conservation. The truth which 
Professor Bain, really in agreement with Mr. Spencer and 
Aristotle, is anxious to bring out, is, that pleasures are 
beneficial to, or conservative of, the system, and pains the 
reverse — that when we are pleasurably affected it is well 
with us, and when we are painfully affected, it is ill with the 
system. Pain is destructive of the system, mentally and bodily. 
A little later (p. 78) Professor Bain is compelled to allow, 
that there is a cross law that must be noted. It is possible 
to have pleasures that are not conservative of the system, 
and pains that are not destructive to the system ; and these 
pleasures and pains are connected with the use of stimulants. 
The exception is honestly allowed and vet somewhat thrown 
into the shadow. What we find in Mr. Spencer, and not in 
Professor Bain, is that the former accounts for the law of 
Self- conservation under evolution. Unless pleasures were 
beneficial and pains injurious, life could not be continued and 
developed. Mr. Spencer is so concerned in bringing forward 
this part of the case, that he overlooks what Professor Bain 
allows, viz. : — that some pleasures are not good and some 
pains not destructive. 

Conational import of Pleasure and Pain. 

There is another peculiar attribute of pleasure and pain, 
viz.: — that the former is self-supporting, the latier self- 

p 2 



212 Elements of Psychology. 

abating. This is only implied by Professor Bain, but is 
used by him later. When I say self-supporting, I mean 
that pleasure tends to keep up whatever activity causes it, 
and pain, to get rid of whatever activity causes it. This 
applies to both such pleasures and pains as obey the law of 
Self-conservation and those connected with stimulants. Even 
a pleasure of stimulant, which in the end is injurious to 
the system, is still one that calls out, for the time being, the 
activity of the system, and many a pain, that may be bene- 
ficial to the system, for the time being depresses activity. 
The fact that pleasure is self-supporting or self-promotive, 
and pain the opposite, is of fundamental importance not 
only for the psychology of Feeling, but also for that of 
Conation. 



For Lecture XXXII read Bain, pp. 289-304 ; Hsffding, VI, C, § 9 ; 
Spencer, Part IX, ch. ix ; Sully, Outlines, &c, pp. 360-374, or The 
Human Mind, xvi, and App. K. 



LECTURE XXXII. 



^ESTHETIC FEELING 



^Esthetic Feeling is psychologically the Highest Feeling, 

We may now revert to those highest, most complex, ' re- 
representative ' feelings, called sometimes sentiments. They 
are in a pre-eminent way accompanied by intellection. We 
are said to recognise beauty, truth, and right ; recognitions 
which have been called ' emotive intuitions/ Of these three 
groups there is, according to Professor Bain, none so complex 
and variable as that of what are called the Esthetic Emotions. 
They are Feeling- Feelings, the ' sense ' of the Beautiful being 
excited in us by the representation of other feelings. English 
writers especially have often set forth systems of moral 
conduct or ethics in connexion with their exposition of the 
moral sentiments as such. Now ethics is one thing, and 
the psychology of Feeling, including that of moral sense, is 
another. And if indeed there is one department of mind 
more than another which ethics should be brought into 
relation with, it is not Feeling but Conation. It is true that 
our ethical actions are conducted or accompanied by certain 
feelings. Undoubtedly also the so-called moral sentiments lie 
at the basis of that kind of action which is called moral. But 
this is no more a reason for treating ethics as a part of the 
psychology of Feeling than it is for treating it as part of the 
psychology of Intellection, since to act rightly we must also 



214 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

know. And when we consider that the psychological doctrine 
of will reposes both upon the psychology of Feeling and the 
psychology of Intellection, and that eihics has to do mainly 
with character, i. e. the outcome of both Feeling and Intellec- 
tion in certain classes of action — of voluntary, willed action — 
we see that, in connecting ethics with the psychology of 
Will, we by implication connect it with the kind of Feeling 
and Thought that go with that kind of action. The regulative 
doctrine connected with the psychology of Feeling is not so 
much ethics as (Esthetics. 

Again, the class of feelings specially called aesthetic may 
involve amongst others representations of moral feelings; 
moral sentiments may be the subject of aesthetic treatment 
and thus made subservient to the production of aesthetic 
emotion ; hence we are justified in ranking aesthetic feeling, 
emotion, or sentiment as highest in the psychology of Feeling. 
In it all Feeling culminates. 

JEsthetic Feeling and Sensuous Pleasure. 

With regard to the term ' aesthetic feeling/ we might equally 
well have used the term ' feeling for (fine) art/ ' feeling (or sense) 
of the Beautiful/ The reason however why aesthetic feeling 
is a more useful term, at least than the latter, is that certain 
of the fine arts are concerned wuh the production of the 
feelings of the sublime and of the ludicrous, both of which 
are also productive of pleasure. Now the word pleasure 
suggests that aesthetic feelings may in a sense be called 
feelings of the Pleasurable, and the doctrine of ^Esthetics be 
concerned with regulating the production of pleasure. On 
the other hand this is too wide, for there are pleasures not 
aesthetic, e. g. eating a beefsteak. * ^Esthetic/ however, does 
suggest sense, and we have to show, to justify the use of the 



xxxil] Elements of Psychology. 215 

term, that the aesthetic feelings, however much more they 
are than pleasures of sense, have relations to pleasures of 
sense. This can be done in more ways than one, and in 
the fact of doing it I think we get the best argument for the 
psychological development of the higher feelings from simpler 
ones. For if we now find that the very highest feelings have 
relation to sense (I do not say, to any kind of sense), we get 
all that high range of feeling brought back to sense in a very 
striking way. 

Some simple pleasures of sense are aesthetic. Some simple 
effects of sound and of colour are in themselves called 
beautiful. Now we have many more sorts of pleasure than 
simple sensations, yet it is a remarkable fact that, whenever 
we are affected by a feeling of the Beautiful, or whenever we 
are concerned with the production through artistic construction 
of a feeling of the Beautiful, it is begotten in us through sense- 
presentations. The pleasure, e.g., that we have in con- 
templating a painting is much more than we derive from 
what we literally perceive in it. But that pleasure cannot be 
excited in us except by way of the senses, and through 
definite figures set cut before our sense-organs. It will not 
suffice to write red, &c., over the blank canvas, and woman 
at the foot. To produce feelings thus, by presentations fully 
bodied out, is the method of painting and sculpture. Poetry, 
on the other hand — literary fine art in general — does really 
effect through symbols on paper what I have represented as 
absurd in the case of painting. Nevertheless, here too what 
is aimed at is the suggestion of definite concrete images. 
I admit that the method is that of representative suggestion ; 
not only are the images not literally bodied out, but even if 
they are too minutely depicted, they generally fail in their 
effect. But it is the senses that are appealed to notwith- 



216 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

standing, and it seems to be this that has got for these 
higher feelings the special designation of ' aesthetic ' — a word 
which originally denoted any feeling. The scope of my 
lecture does not permit me to draw from this an argument 
for the development of feelings from simpler feelings. I will 
only add thus much, that as aesthetic feeling, although it has 
this relation to sense, is re-representative feeling and always 
involves representative elements, there is no feeling that may 
not, if represented in a certain way, become aesthetic. Even 
painful presentations may, when represented in particular 
ways, become pleasurable. To effect this strict conditions 
are necessary, nor is it indifferent by which art the pre- 
sentation is made. Such inquiries belong to the regulative 
doctrine of Esthetics. We have to distinguish between the 
psychological problem : — what is the nature, the charac- 
teristics, elements, origin, and development of the aesthetic 
feelings ? and the philosophical consideration : — what is the 
object, what is the test or criterion, of what is beautiful? 
Let us, before leaving the subject, revert to and set out some- 
what the psychological inquiry. 

Characteristics of the ^Esthetic Sentiment. 

Beautiful things, then, are perceptible things. Truth, on 
the other hand, which is the outcome of intellect, is con- 
cerned, not with particular things, but with the general aspect 
of things. The aesthetic sentiment chiefly accompanies the 
pleasures of Sight and Hearing. We need such sensible 
occasions for the feeling of the Beautiful as it is possible for 
a multitude to share ; and these are met chiefly among sights 
and sounds. We also characterise it as refined and elevated : 
unattended by such drawbacks as a preceding craving, as 
in the case of appetite, or a succeeding pain, as surfeit. 



xxxil] Elements of Psychology. 217 

If there are any pains they rather serve to heighten the 
aesthetic pleasure. It admits, with due variation in source 
and sensuous channel, of an indefinite amount of prolonga- 
tion without causing fatigue, so that it contributes much 
to the sum total of life's enjoyments. It is disinterested, 
unaccompanied by desire for ulterior ends; it must spring 
out of the mere act of contemplation ; it does not involve 
any special relation like possession. It is a 'shareable' 
pleasure, being greatly enhanced by the interchange of 
sympathy. It is essentially complex, as being developed to 
a high power of representation. ^Esthetic pleasure is further 
distinguished by the nature of the activities which accompany 
it. They are not life-preserving — this being the modern 
form of the old distinction between the useful and the 
beautiful. The value of the object of aesthetic feeling de- 
pends entirely on its relation to the feeling at the time of 
contemplation. It is true that in aesthetic considerations we 
do include what we call the beauty of fitness. In architecture 
especially many beautiful forms owe much of their beauty 
to the suggestion of utility ; there the beautiful overlaps 
the useful. Still this fact does not affect the general dis- 
tinction. 

^Esthetic pleasures consist mainly in the simple effects 
of Light, Colour, Muscular Sensibility, Tone, and Pitch, and 
their derivative effects, according as they are aggregated, 
transferred and modified by the principles of Relativity, 
Novelty, Harmony, and Association. 

The Play-impulse. 

The play-impulse is the third aspect of organic life (in 
addition to those of self-conservation and reproduction) from 
the point 01 view of biological evolution, viz. the putting forth 



218 Elements of Psychology. 

of spare energy in the form of play. In the adult it becomes 
an impulse to create aesthetically, the creations, when made, 
gratifying the feelings called aesthetic. 



For Lecture XXXIII read : — 

Bain, pp. 318-324 ; Hoffding, VII, A. Cf. also Spencer, Part IV, 
ch. iv ; Sully, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 35-38 ; or The Human 
Mind, xvii, § 5 1-5, App. A. 



LECTURE XXXIII. 

CONATION AND ITS MODES. 
Analysis of a State of Volitional Consciousness : Intellectual Element. 

We are about to consider pleasure and pain in as far 
as they affect our activity, pleasure supporting activity, 
pain abating it. This brings us to review the range of ' will/ 
and we shall start from that which is most familiar to us, 
viz. conation as we in the adult state are aware of it. E. g. 
*I will to open the door/ What does this mean? This 
1 will ' has a reference to our inner, or subjective life, and 
also, in this instance at all events, a relation to our powers of 
bodily movement. In willing to open that door, my sub- 
jective consciousness is modified in a certain way, but does 
the modification stop short there in the subjective region? 
I get up, I walk to the door, I turn the handle and the door 
opens. Let us analyse the act of volition more particularly. 
When I say, I will to open that door, I am representing to myself 
the door as opened, through muscular acts of mine, for some 
end or purpose in my consciousness. I could not will 
to open the door if I could not represent how to do it, 
i. e. what a door-handle and lock are. Infants cannot will to 
open the door, not because of any want of sufficient muscular 
activity (though their strength no doubt is small), but from 
want of representation. Into anything that we call developed 



220 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

volition, or will, intellection enters in the way of definite 
representation. 

Emotional Element, 

But, still confining ourselves to the subjective sphere or 
region, we have not yet got the power of will in showing 
the representative element in the act of opening the door. 
I imagining that door being opened — this is intellection, 
not conation. There is something more in the case, and 
this is that the representation has relation to some end 
or purpose that you propose to yourself — an end or purpose 
which has its expression in terms of feeling. What kind of 
feeling was there in the case of willing to open the door ? 
Desire to go out, to keep an engagement, to dine, to promote 
clearness in the minds of students. Directly or indirectly, 
nearly or remotely, you will always find an element of 
feeling involved in conation, together with intellectual repre- 
sentation. The representation takes place in reference to 
feeling. 

Conational Residuum. 

But we have not yet our full act of volition. In will is 
involved muscular activity. Even connected with my desire 
to teach there is the overt activity of speech. There is some- 
thing in willing that is peculiar, and neither feeling as such, 
nor intellection as such. In willing, feeling and intellection 
are brought together in a certain way by activity. Conation 
essentially involves activity, and more markedly than does 
either of the other phases. The word itself signifies impulse 
towards or striving towards, action (German Slreben). 
Conation is a better word than will, or volition, as giving 
a suggestion of activity and nothing but activity, which is just 
what we want. 



xxxiil] Elements of Psychology. 221 

Is there such an Irreducible Residuum? 

Directly, however, we begin to consider instances the 
serious question arises, whether these do not fall under one 
of the other two phases of mind. Appetites, such as hunger 
and thirst, might with good reason be called feelings. 
Is conation then as distinguishable a phase of mind as we have 
found the others to be ? Professor Bain clearly thinks that it 
is, as also Professors Hoffding and Sully. Mr. Spencer, on 
the other hand, as we have seen, considers only feelings and 
relations between feelings, or feelings of relation (intellec- 
tion), and nothing more. He never gives to will that 
prominence which it receives in other systems l ; and the 
Spencerian student is left in some doubt as to where his 
master intended that will should find its place. This is 
obviously unsatisfactory ; the matter ought not to have been 
left so indefinite. 

Nevertheless all this tends to show that the title of will to 
be regarded as a third phase of mind is at least doubtful, and 
more open to question than that of the other two phases. 

1 Some philosophers indeed express the very fact or essence of 
mind in terms of will. Schopenhauer and Professor Wundt and 
Dr. Ward tend most of all to bring forward this, the active phase, as 
the fundamental fact of mind ; the last, as also Professor Sully, in the 
prominence given to Attention at a quite early stage of his analysis 
of mind. The word Apperception introduced into modern psychology 
from philosophy by Professor Wundt, is now come into vogue to 
express the fundamental fact of Attention. According to Professor 
Wundt, will is apperception of a certain kind, a term by which he 
draws special notice to the essential activity of mind. Yet these 
writers are equally struck with the fact that intellection also involves 
activity. Now Attention is voluntary intellection, and to understand 
it we must understand intellection of itself, and volition by itself. It 
is then that we can treat of intellection. 



222 



Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 



Thus Professor Bain and Professor Sully, while classing it 
as a third phase of mind, yet distinctly make it out to be the 
one phase which they cannot consider except in connexion 
with a previous treatment of intellection and feeling. If 
we revert to our previous example of willing to open the 
door, we remember that both intellection and feeling were 
involved. Is this a complete account of that experience? 
Mr. Spencer would answer, Yes. But Professor Bain, Pro- 
fessor Sully, and others imply (rather than assert) that, after 
making all due allowance for intellection and feeling, 
there is yet a something else involved, for the adequate 
expression of which some such term as will must be 
employed. 

A Modified Independence for Will. 

We shall hold to the view that, as long as we keep to 
volition of a developed type, it is arguable that will is not 
a third independent phase of mind, but that, if we view will 
in connexion with the other modes of conation, then we are 
bound to assume that conation is a third phase of mind, 
distinguishable just as intellection and feeling are distinguish- 
able. The fact that will presupposes the latter two, does 
not of itself destroy the independence of it as a third phase. 
And this independence becomes much more marked when 
we go beyond the developed forms of will to treat of all the 
forms of overt activity in the human system, as well as what 
may be called covert activity. 

Modes of Conation, 

What these forms of activity are, involuntary and voluntary, 
we must take into account. All are covered by the term 
conation, and the very fact that they can be collected and 
considered together gives ground for asserting, that there 



xxxiii.] Elements of Psychology. 223 

is something in mind distinguishable from intellection or 
feeling, and needing a name for itself. And be it remembered 
that will, as falling within conation, is taken account of 
in whatever is said of the wider sphere of conation. Too 
many writers neglect the precautions and limits, which 
should mark out the proper use of will as distinguished 
from conation *. 

Action may be voluntary or involuntary. By the former 
we mean of course volition or will. 

The modes of the latter are numerous, e. g. there is 
(a) involuntary action that is conscious, (5) involuntary 
action that is either not conscious at all, or (c) conscious 
only to a limited extent. Yet, for the proper understanding 
of will we have to take account not only of involuntary 
action that is conscious, but also of involuntary action that is 
more or less unconscious. And the proof that it is neces- 
sary to study both together with will is given by the fact that 
voluntary action passes so readily into involuntary action. 
For instance, I will to open the door ; I get up and do so : 
this is voluntary activity. I explain a paper to a student 
after class, and we go out together talking, he or I opening 
the door without attending to it : this is involuntary activity. 
Was it unconscious ? Yes, and No. It was not done with 
full consciousness, because the act was not voluntary; but 
neither was it done quite unconsciously. It belongs to some 
step in that gradation of clearness in consciousness called 

1 Professor Bain, e. g., uses will in as wide a sense as that which 
I reserve for conation, viz. to cover Appetite, Instinct, and Desire, 
as well as developed Willing or Volition proper. Nevertheless it 
was he who first gave us a psychological theory of will. Rcid and 
Stewart do not deal with simpler cases of voluntary action. Hamilton 
gave us the term Conation, but never dealt with the matter analytically. 



224 Elements of Psychology. [lect. 

sub-consciousness. So it would seem that we should study 
involuntary action first, and refer voluntary action to it in 
a logically subordinate way. The case of involuntary action 
developed from voluntary action is but one case of involuntary 
action where there are others. Under involuntary action we 
class : — 

(i) Spontaneous activity (Bain), or automatic primary 
action. 

(ii) Reflex action. 
Both these are unconscious as such. 

(iii) Instinctive action. 

(iv) Secondary automatic action. 
Both ihese involve consciousness. 

(i) Theory of Spontaneous Activity. 

Professor Bain contends for unstimulated action, i. e. activity 
independent of any stimulus external to the system. He 
holds that nerve-centres which may be stimulated from 
without may — owing to the state in which they are in con- 
sequence of nutrition — discharge, of themselves, through the 
efferent nerve-fibres, and so give rise to muscular activity. 
The mere physical state of the nerve-centres may be the con- 
dition of their discharge. Many physiologists and psycho- 
logists agree with Professor Bain in this. 

But much of his argument in support of spontaneous 
activity is misplaced, because he tries to make out that, 
along with such a state of nutrition there can be absolute 
absence of stimulation. This never can positively be said to 
be so. Under the necessary conditions of life we can never 
eliminate the fact of external stimulus, so as to make out 
absolutely unstimulated activity. However, he was not con- 



xxxiii. ] Elements of Psychology. 225 

tending for a shadow under the name of spontaneity. The 
truth of the matter is somewhat thus. According to the 
various states of the centres, the same stimulus at different 
times gives rise to very different results. That is to say, 
the stimulus is not so much the cause, as the occasion of 
the activity. The latter depends more upon the state of the 
centres themselves than upon the particular stimulus. There 
must in all probability always be stimulus, but the amount 
of stimulus does not always determine the amount of the 
resulting activity. Much may appear indeed to be centrally 
initiated, and further, I repeat, even if we come to the con- 
clusion that all action, if tested, will be found to be ultimately 
started from without, yet there is an ' independent variable ' 
in the nerve-centres ; i. e. the amount of impulse which 
comes out does not depend wholly upon the amount of 
in- going stimulus, but in part upon the state of the nervous 
system at the time and upon the constitution of the individual 
nervous system given. For human beings and animals too 
vary very greatly in the amount of active response made to 
any given stimulus. A great deal respecting human activity 
is inexplicable save in the light of this assumption. The 
nervous system in any case permits of the storage of energy, 
and the outcoming amount depends on the storage. Again, 
the traces left by actions in the nervous system facilitate the 
carrying out of the same act more and more tlie oftener it is 
repeated. 

The whole phenomenon is better termed Primary Automatic 
Action, or action from within, depending mainly upon 
internal organisation, the necessary reference to stimulus from 
without being discounted. Much of the earliest action of 
the human system is of this spontaneous, or automatic kind. 
And there is not a single mode of primitive activity in the 

Q 



226 Elements of Psychology. 

system that is not a proper starting-point for the development 
of will. We build up our will on these as we do upon reflex 
and instinctive actions. The first primitive act of taking in 
food is the foundation for the putting forth of energy to take 
food. The crying of a child, instinctive at first, soon begins 
to pass into a voluntary form, and to take place with reference 
to a represented pleasurable feeling. 



For Lecture XXXIV read :— 
Bain, pp. 325-338, 366-371 ; Hoffding, VI, B, § 1, a and b. Also 
cf. Spencer, Part IV, ch. v. 



LECTURE XXXIV. 

modes of conation {continued). INSTINCT. 

(ii) Reflex Action, 

Reflex action is essentially stimulated action, whatever 
may be urged to the contrary with respect to Primary 
Automatic action. The name comes from the 
characteristic bending back upon itself of the /> 

action as seen in the simplest case (cf. Lecture f v 
VI). The human system is such that ultimately ' 
all nerve-action may be regarded as of the reflex 
type, the essential tendency of nerve- cell being to discharge 
when stimulated. 

Reflex action is, like spontaneous action, not only in- 
voluntarv but also unconscious. Much action that is un- 
conscious takes place through the brain; i.e. not only spinal, 
but also certain cerebral processes may be regarded as reflex. 
The fact that certain action in the brain is accompanied by 
consciousness does not prevent other cerebral action from 
being described as reflex. Reflex action is the antithesis to re- 
flective action, which term might well be applied to voluntary 
action as involving representation. Curiously enough the 
original physical meaning of reflex and reflective is identical. 
Reflex action as such has no subjective face ; but voluntary 

Q 2 



228 Elements of Psychology, [Lect. 

actioq, which has a subjective face, is intimately related to 
reflex action. As psychologists, concerned mostly with 
voluntary action, we must at the same time study reflex 
action of the simple type, and this is always unconscious. 
For we study will, not only subjectively, but also from the 
side of its physiological conditions. 

The term reflex has a purely physiological meaning. From 
the point of view of physiology all nerve action is reflex 
action, which may have a voluntary side. By far the greater 
number of vital processes of the system are reflex processes. 
They are determined for us, and go on normally without 
consciousness. 

In waking life we find a concurrence of reflex action with 
action that is not reflex. But consider a sleeping child. 
For the time consciousness is in abeyance. Tickle its 
hand ; it closes its fist upon your finger. If it were awake 
and not attending to anything else it would feel your touch, 
and either close its hand voluntarily, or refuse to do so, 
voluntarily. But while asleep, the closing of the hand on 
your finger is purely a reflex act, and comes to pass probably 
by way of some part of the nervous system other than the 
brain. But even if it took place by the aid of the brain we 
should still call it reflex. All voluntary action involves 
stimulation of the brain, and action that goes through the 
system short of the brain is reflex. But that is not all : there 
is reflex action of the brain also ; and such action is most 
probably involved in much of the very highest of our con- 
scious action. Conscious action and reflex action in our 
system shade into one another. 

Reflex acts, in spite of their proceeding as such uncon- 
sciously, are still adaptive. (This is a more correct term 
than 'purposive/) Adaptive activity may be used with an 



xxxiv.] Elements of Psychology. 229 

objective meaning, as equivalent to activity beneficial to the 
organism, promoting vitality, conservative of the system, &c. 
Here we may define it as actions such as we should perform 
if we were conscious of them. Either way an end is involved. 
We cannot help bringing forward teleological considerations. 
Does not such a notion seem to require an explanation 
ultimately in terms of consciousness ? How did reflex action 
acquire this power of adaptivity ? This question will recur 
under instinct and volition. Meanwhile we see that conation 
cannot be treated of apart from reflex action ; the same 
considerations are involved in each. But in reflex action the 
end that is sought is not sought deliberately by the organism 
that puts forth the action. For the individual, his reflex acts 
are unconscious acts ; if they are adaptive, it is not he that 
produced the adaptation. 

Primitive combined movements, such as Professor Bain 
(p. 69) instances, are simply a case of reflex action of rather 
a special kind. Our organic system from the very first has 
the power not only of putting forth adaptive reflex acts, but 
of combining such acts. He brings them out as a basis for 
the explanation of voluntary activity. Voluntary acts always 
involve co-ordination or combination, and this is provided 
for in the system before and below volition proper. A great 
part of our active mental development consists in breaking up 
these primitive combinations, as well as in working them 
up into higher combinations. In fact, the nervous system, 
being a system, tends from the first to work together. De- 
velopment for the individual consists as much in decompos- 
ing the originally complex as in building up from the simple. 
A child's first activities are vague, undirected, undifferentiated. 
It moves altogether, as we say. But it enters into the very 
essence of volition that activity should be differentiated. 



230 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

(iii) Instinctive Action. 

Instinctive action is a special kind of activity that can be 
accounted for satisfactorily only under the head of conation, 
yet has a very distinct and important character of its own. 
As compared with any kind of reflex action it is essentially 
very complex. Mr. Spencer, recognising this fact, speaks of 
it as 'doubly compound reflex action,' a description which is 
purely physiological, and moreover very vague. Instinct may 
reach a much higher degree of complexity than this. Instinc- 
tive action is essentially adaptive action, action serviceable to, 
or conservative of, the system, a character which in reflex 
action is not universal. But instinct is not only adaptive, it 
is also action which has a conscious accompaniment, though 
not of the developed kind that we get in voluntary action. 
There may be feeling, in the case of instinctive action, but 
there is no intellection proper. There is subservience to 
an end; but the great difference between instinct and will 
proper is, that in will we are conscious of the end as end, 
while in instinct we may be conscious of acting but not 
of the end. In other words, a voluntary act is one consciously 
put forth for an end consciously conceived ; whereas, in the 
instinctive act, there is never a fore-perception of the effect of 
the act. Instinctive action is adapted to an end which does 
not come within the consciousness of the individual, but which 
may be explained by reference to the history or development 
of the race. 

Instincts are manifested in the very beginning of life ; 
children can instinctively do from the first with regard to 
feeding what they have afterwards to learn to do with regard 
to other things. In the lower animals instinct bears a much 
greater proportion to will than it does in human beings. 



xxxiv.] Elements of Psychology. 231 

The majority of human actions are, as opposed to instinct, 
acquired. To the extent that an animal can acquire the 
power of performing actions that it could not do at first, 
the animal must be credited with something of the nature 
of will. Professor Bain 1 defines instinct as untaught ability 
manifested at the beginning of life. But many an act that 
is not learned may yet not manifest itself until later in life, 
e. g. the tendency to walk, — which is ultimately instinctive 
though accompanied by a strong voluntary element. The 
latter might prove unavailing, if the tendency were not there, 
untaught. An instinct may appear at any period in the 
growth of the individual, though not when that growth has 
ceased. The range of instinct in man is much greater 
than is often supposed, but the development of it in him is 
very low as compared with the lower animals. Considering 
the relative length of life, this is no more than one would 
expect. Moreover, relatively to the lower animals man is 
distinctly a social animal and far more dependent upon his 
parents and his fellows than are the young of other kinds. 
And since the human parents are able to do much more for 
the child than the lower animals can do for their young, the 
instincts in man develop much more slowly. However, in 
the case of instincts that develop later than the beginning of 
life, there is always a possibility that they may involve some 
element of experience over and beyond the instinct itself. 
Late developed instinct will be essentially complex. 

1 Professor Bain has a good definition of instinct, but does not give 
an express consideration of it as a phase of mental life. He minimises 
it, and we do not get an adequate account of it from him. He con- 
siders the instinctive play of feeling ; and it is true that some of the 
expression of emotion has a properly instinctive character ; but this 
is not nearly the whole of instinct. How much of all our activity is 
instinctive, is an important question which he passes over. 



232 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

Finally, then, instinct is a substitute for volition or will 
that is absent. Instinct and will must always be interpreted 
together as modes of conation ; but there is a sense in 
which instinct takes the place of intellection, hence by 
confusion of notions it has often been regarded as wholly 
intellectual. But the intellection involved in instinct is latent, 
whereas in will it is expressed. 

(iv) Secondary Automatic Action. 

Secondary Automatic action is action not manifest originally, 
nor out of relation to the experience of the individual, but 
a result of that experience. It is action that was voluntary, 
but has become through habit automatic. E. g. walking, 
which, instinctive to a certain extent, is voluntarily acquired 
and then becomes a secondary automatic act ; also speaking, 
writing, playing on an instrument, &c. Habitual action is 
voluntary action thoroughly acquired. Habits are secondary 
automatic acts, automatic to the extent to which they are 
fixed and go on of themselves. 

6 Mechanical ' A ction . 

All automatic action, whether primarily or secondarily so, 
we are apt to call ' mechanical/ nevertheless the term cannot 
be applied equally in all cases, and never properly expresses 
the character either of instinctive or of secondary automatic 
acts. For though the latter may not be fully conscious acts, 
yet they are always subconscious, never utterly unconscious. 

Primary automatic action is mechanical in so far as it is 
organically determined, in spite of the fact that the word 
' mechanical ' never covers the whole meaning of any organic 
process. In a similar sense reflex action can also be called 
mechanical, differing only in the presence of definite external 



xxxiv.] Elements of Psychology. 233 

stimulation. But instinct, as accompanied by, and to a 
certain extent dependent upon, consciousness, cannot be 
called mechanical, except indeed in drawing attention to 
its aspect of uniformity and constancy, of certainty and 
necessity. The act is somehow provided for in the organism 
and is so far mechanical. Similarly the true character of 
secondary automatic action is not brought out by any term 
such as mechanical, automatic, &c, because in the beginning 
it had to be learned, and, though not performed with full 
consciousness, still is not performed without consciousness. 

To the extent that acts have become secondary automatic 
acts there is reason to believe that they are no longer 
carried out, as at first, wholly by the higher centres of the 
brain. But though such action goes on mainly through the 
lower centres, it calls into play the higher centres also, and 
cannot go on without their aid. 

To the extent that acts are performed with unerring 
certainty, they tend to become unconscious. The most 
conscious of our acts are those accompanied by doubt or 
uncertainty. By the passage of an action from the range 
of the conscious to that of the unconscious, consciousness is 
left free for the development or acquirement of other actions. 
If an act is such, that it could never have been performed 
except with consciousness, the fact that it comes to be 
performed subconsciously does not derogate from its original 
character, but simply leaves consciousness free, and ourselves 
to that extent the gainers. 

Instinct and Evolution. 

However unable we may be to account for this or that 
instinct in detail, about instinct as a topic that has to be ex- 
plained, and not merely accepted, there is no longer any doubt. 



234 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

The theories of evolution and heredity have worked great 
changes in views on this subject. Evolution with regard to 
instinct is a vera causa. One idea is that, in the case of instinct, 
the same or corresponding kinds of changes of activities take 
place in the history of the race that, in the case of secondary 
automatic action, we find take place in the history of the 
individual. Instinct is lapsed intelligence : acts that are now 
instinctive for the race were originally acquired consciously 
by the individual. Instincts have arisen through racial use 
or experience. This was Lewes's theory. 

Nevertheless a hypothesis is not proved to be true by 
its accounting for the facts. Special verification must be 
sought, and in this, as in many cases, there is needed a 
1 crucial experiment 'to show the truth between two hypotheses. 
We need, I say, experiential, and if possible experimental, 
verification. Now those who explain instinct by lapsed 
intelligence are bound to hold that secondary automatic acts 
are inherited. But the case of secondary automatic action, 
as used to account for instinct, is one that lends itself to 
experiential verification. All the experience we have yet 
had is against the view that secondary automatic acts as 
such are inherited. There is as yet no definite proof that 
acts acquired by experience can be propagated, however 
hard it may be to believe that this was not the original 
cause. As Darwin maintained, who, although not a psycho- 
logist, was a man of extraordinary insight, instincts were not 
acts first learned and then inherited. They arose first as 
accidental variations; these were naturally selected and so 
inherited. We do not inherit the results of our parents' 
experience, but we may inherit what they were born with, 
i. e. congenital (accidental) variations. 

Moreover, the ' Lapsed Intelligence ' theory contains 



xxxiv.] Elements of Psychology. 235 

something like an absurdity. It compels us to assume 
more intelligence in long past ancestors, than in the indi- 
vidual who manifests the instinct, — that to the extent that 
acts have become more and more deeply instinctive, the 
earlier and simpler animals were more intelligent than 
the later ones. Thus while it is hard (e. g. in the case of 
special aptitudes) to exclude the likelihood that Secondary 
Automatic action suggests one explanation of the origin of 
instinct, yet the other view is the more probable one. 

Appetites. 

One other topic to be united with instinct is that of 
Appetites, a class of conscious states peculiarly connected 
with action, although, as I have said in the previous lecture, 
there might be good reason for classing them with feelings. 
They involve modes of sense, but are distinct from mere 
sensation in being recurrent or periodical wants of the system, 
and, as recurrent, in determining a certain marked form of 
activity. Activity with a view to what kind of feeling ? Some 
say with a view to pleasure ; others say no, for we find appetites 
manifested before there has been gratification of them. It 
cannot be said that they have no relation to feeling. But 
they are not, to begin with, determined by pleasure ; they 
are determined by an uneasy feeling which has to be got 
rid of. A child does not first cry to be fed, but from 
the pain of hunger. And the activity put forth with which the 
vanishing of the painful feeling is connected, cannot as such 
be said to have been learned, but is of a properly instinctive 
kind. 

It should be noted that desire is to emotion as appetite 
is to primitive wants of the system. Any sense-feeling 
or emotion may, as motion, i. e. as determining action, in 



236 Elements of Psychology. 

a case when uneasiness is hard to get rid of, be called desire 
Desire is wishing as opposed to willing. 

Instinct and Will. 

Finally, however we aggrandise instinct, there is nothing 
more characteristic about the beginning of life than that we 
are not able at will to put forth adaptive activity in relation 
to feeling. A young infant cannot move its hand to the 
right point, or follow a light by moving its eyes. Will is 
something that has development in the life of the individual, 
in regard to the experience of the individual ; and there 
are modes of willing that some individuals never develop. 
Earlier psychologists implied that the power of putting forth 
definite activity in relation to feeling is primitive, and needs 
no explanation. It was Professor Bain who first gave distinct 
prominence to the development of will (supra, p. 223), and 
his view of this problem is m the main perfectly correct, 
and is the best and most carefully considered psychological 
theory of volitional power extant. 



For Lecture XXXV read Bain, pp. 338-365 ; Hoffding, VII, B, ic-5. 



LECTURE XXXV. 

VOLITION AND CONTROL. 

Purposive Action, 

Uniformity is the characteristic note of instinct (discount- 
ing special cases). Now it is true that some sort of voluntary 
power is common to all ordinary people, nevertheless there 
is nothing more remarkable than the differences in the extent 
to which will is developed in different persons. 

Will is purposive action — action that is appropriate for 
a certain end which the individual can represent to himself 
along with the means to that end. The more definite the 
action is the more the end drops out of view ; nevertheless 
all the steps of the voluntary act depend on a foregone 
representation of ends, these being always to be ultimately 
expressed in terms of feeling. Hence will is a peculiar 
complex of feeling and intellection. 

' The imitative wilV 

Development of will in the individual is hardly ever 
haphazard, except perhaps at the start. The governing fact 
in regard to any actual human being is that he is a social 
creature, not an individual left to himself, as are some of the 
lower animals. Things are done for the child from the first. 
Family relation sets it upon acting in particular ways long 



238 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

before it would dream of doing so of itself. All the actions 
performed for it and in its sight indicate the lines along 
which its actions must take place; then, when it has 
acquired a certain command of its bodily members, the social 
factor becomes most prominent in the disposition towards 
imitating everything that it sees. Thus a power of appro- 
priate activity is acquired. 

This applies to all kinds of actions, but to none more than 
to speech. Children learn to speak voluntarily mainly by 
means of imitation. But at the back of imitation there is 
a creative faculty with regard to language, a sort of approxi- 
mately spontaneous activity, in all children. If it were not 
for this the child could never go so far afterwards as it does 
in imitating others. This factor must necessarily be assumed 
as a basis for imitation. Children born deaf do not speak at 
all ; the spring of energy wLhin shows itself in the move- 
ments of hands, &c. But this energy is so dependent on 
external stimulus that, if the stimulus is wanting, as here, the 
energy does not naturally spend itself in that direction. 
Thus, though hearing does not explain speech, there is no 
speech without hearing. No other case so neatly shows the 
combination of the two factors — that of impression received, 
and that of natural energy. 

A zvide basis for the Evolution of Volition. 

Professor Bain's view of volition errs from the narrowness 
of its point of departure. He bases everything on the 
assumption that in the first instance acts are spontaneous or 
random, leading then to a result beneficial (in terms of 
feeling) to the individual. This is too narrow and limited. 
The very fact that a reflex action is of a more definite kind 
than a spontaneous action counts in its favour, making it more 



xxxv.] Elements of Psychology. 239 

likely to enter as a factor into early volition. Instinct, as a 
complex arrangement for adaptive action, is far more widely 
provided for in the system than Professor Bain seems to 
think. It is a great mistake to connect voluntary activity 
with only one kind of involuntary activity. Anything that 
the individual could do for itself, by any such line of develop- 
ment as Professor Bain here suggests, would fall very far 
short of the ability for voluntary action that children actually 
do manifest from the very first. A vast deal is due to their 
social relations to parents and others, and to their imitation 
of others. In Chapter II Professor Bain discusses the 
voluntary control over bodily movements, as the first di>tinct 
manifestation of will in the human system, and as that which 
serves as a basis for future developments of will. This is 
a justifiable view. We all come in time to have some degree 
of control over feeling and intellection, but in the first place 
the child has to learn to control its voluntary muscles. In 
Chapter III he discusses the voluntary control of feeling and 
intellection. When he speaks of will, he always means 
will of this kind, but particularly so in his discussion of 
imitation. Voluntary movement is consummated by the 
idea of effect to be produced. Every step in Professor 
Bain's argument has reference to the control of bodily move- 
ment. The books, either implicitly or explicitly, follow a 
similar course. 

Action for Feeling. 

The ultimate end of volition is psychologically expressed 
by feeling. Feeling, in a case of willing, always supplies the 
motive power. The motive, if not directly, is yet remotely 
set in terms of feeling. I do not say that all acts are per- 
formed with a view to the resulting pleasure or pain, for this 



240 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

is profoundly untrue of those actions performed later on in life 
which we call noble and virtuous. Much action voluntarily 
performed has no direct reference to pleasure and pain. 
But the first manifestations of will are made in connexion 
with the experience of pleasure and pain. The first volun- 
tary acts of a child are those which are performed with a 
view to procuring or maintaining or increasing pleasure, or to 
the getting rid or keeping clear or abating of pain. The 
problem then of will or volition is to forge a link of some 
kind between Activity and Feeling. Volition is always action 
for, or in order to, feeling ; but there is another kind of activity 
connected with feeling, viz. emotional expression, usually 
muscular. This is best described as action of feeling, and 
must be clearly distinguished from action for feeling. The 
latter is voluntary ; the former, as such, is mainly involuntary. 
Much of the former is in the full sense instinctive, as being 
adaptive action. But to the extent that it is instinctive, it is 
not voluntary, — for the individual. 

The Transition from Random to Voluntary Activity, 

The passages from random reflex acts to voluntary acts 
is well drawn by Professor Bain. Where is the link 
forged? In the law (Lecture XXXII) that pleasure is 
self-supporting, pain self-destroying or self-abating, we get 
the first beginning of a link between the elements of feeling 
and activity, in a way that no other explanation yet suggested 
has supplied us with. The random activity leads to results 
which, if they are painful, cause the activity to be stopped, 
if pleasurable, to be carried on. Instinct, it is true, is not 
random but purposive, but I am speaking of the use to which 
instinct can be put volitionally. And in relation to volition 



xxxv.] Elements of Psychology. 241 

that may come to pass, the instinct which in itself is adaptive 
may act at random for the new result which it may bring 
about. It may, I repeat, be perfectly haphazard with regard 
to the particular end which it may come afterwards to 
subserve in the life of the individual. Crying, for instance, 
as an expression of pain felt, is not haphazard, but, as leading 
to warmth through contact with the nurse, it is at first 
a random act. 

Now we may act (i) upon the wish to act, or (ii) upon 
representation of acting. In the former case (i) we act 
upon a distinct experience of feeling actually present, or upon 
a distinct representation of feeling. Wish is wholly built 
upon feeling. In the latter case (ii) we act upon representa- 
tion of action completed. Although in ultimate analysis an 
element of feeling or of represented feeling can always be 
shown to be involved, yet this comes to drop into the back- 
ground. Our development of volition is aided by our power 
of submerging the feeling. 

Control. 

From the basis of bodily action as modified or controlled 
through feeling, we pass to a consideration of the voluntary 
control of feeling. The transition is not sharp. In willing 
to move an arm, is it merely the physical arm that we wish 
to move ? No, in connexion with the arm's action we have 
certain feelings. The bodily organs in their action have a 
conscious phase or accompaniment, so that we are not 
dealing with body as bare matter, but we are concerned with 
bodily, as related to mental, changes. 

On the other hand, it is simple to see that, in speaking of 
the voluntary control of feeling, though feelings as such are 

K 



242 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

bare subjective states, yet they have also a definite bodily 
concomitant, and it is with this that we would deal. In 
controlling feeling we must do it through the external 
manifestation, which is not mental but bodily. 

The power of controlling the feelings cannot be denied, 
but it has its limits. How does this control come to pass ? 
Children start with no such control over their sense-feelings 
and such simple emotions as they then have. How is the 
control that is attained acquired, and why cannot we wholly 
control our feelings ? 

From the subjective point of view, the way to control a 
feeling is to substitute for it another feeling, or an indifferent 
intellectual state. This involves control of intellection; 
we are voluntarily modifying the flow of our representative 
consciousness. Thus the difficulty is only pushed aside. 
Is this all that we can do? No; feeling may also be 
controlled through its emotional expression. This expression, 
as we saw, is either muscular or visceral, showing itself in the 
body in one or other of these ways. And our feelings we 
have in connexion with those bodily processes and not apart 
from them. Feeling is not one thing and the expression of 
it another added thing. The feeling is had in the expression 
of it. What is to us, subjectively, an emotion is, physically 
regarded, this or that organic process. In the absence of the 
accompaniment we do not have the feeling. This gives a 
means of affecting feeling through its expression. We have, 
it is true, no voluntary control in general over the viscera ; 
but so far as the expression of feeling is muscular, it takes 
place through those muscles over which we acquire bodily 
control; and to the extent that these muscles are involved 
and that we have control over them, we can affect the feeling 
in affecting the expression. 



xxxv.] Elements of Psychology. 243 

Limits of Control. 

To such control there are two limits : — (1) much expression 
of feeling is not muscular, and (2) even if it be muscular, it 
may be so violent that control over it is lost. 

Can we have a feeling when the expression is suppressed ? 
Can we have the expression of a feeling without having the 
feeling ? Both these questions we briefly touched upon from 
the side of expression (Lecture XXX), not that of control, 
and to both of these we answered, No. If we have the 
expression to the full, we cannot but have the feeling ; and 
again, if we have no expression at all, the feeling cannot 
exist. 

Now in ordinary talk, by ' expression ' we mean external 
expression, because this alone is obvious to the outsider. 
But, correctly speaking, expression includes all changes, and 
when the word is thus used in its widest sense, the above 
statements must be admitted as true. The mere fact of 
suppressing the external expression only, may rather intensify 
than kill the feeling. 

Again, in acting a feeling, as on the stage, it may be 
asked whether a person acts best when he really has the 
feeling, or when he merely adopts the external expression 
and remains calmly critical within (Diderot). The answer 
would probably be given differently by different actors. 
Some cannot have the expression correct unless they really 
have the feeling ; others, in having the feeling most intensely, 
fail to give the expression in the artistic way required. 

Our power then of modifying the life of feeling is, while 
capable of development, more or less limited, and is best 
exercised indirectly, through the control we possess over our 
representations. 

R 2 



244 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

Let us now consider the voluntary control of intellection. 
In regard to representations, we have not the power of 
voluntarily bringing up what is not in consciousness. We 
may wish as much as we like to do so, and nevertheless not 
succeed. The notion is self-contradictory. In order to 
bring it in by willing, we must already be somehow conscious 
of it. But then we have not to bring it into consciousness. But 
we can do something to help the coming into consciousness 
of representations by keeping in consciousness what is there 
and so, by way of association, bringing in what was not there. 
All thinking is determined by association, but the laws do not 
work wholly independently; we can control them more or 
Jess. We can hold on to such representations as we have got, 
and so help all that they suggest to revive in consciousness. 

An inattentive person has a wandering mind ; his mental 
processes are unregulated ; he gives way to the bare action 
of association. Such an effort as I have described is only 
possible where there is some power of concentration. Some- 
times, however, the desired experience comes up when we 
have begun to think of something else. This is because 
there has been a removal of the strain put by feeling upon 
attentive recollection. 

But how is it that we are able to keep before consciousness 
a thought that is already there ? What is the mechanism of 
this process ? It is related to our power of keeping an organ 
muscularly fixed, such as the eye. If the same brain is 
involved in acts of thought as in acts of perception, then we 
may suppose that what goes on in the brain when we are 
attentively thinking, is related to what must go on when we 
are attentively perceiving. The same parts of the brain are 
affected qualitatively in the same way. For in fact in think- 
ing we really are, or tend to be, muscularly active in a parti- 



xxxv.] Elements of Psychology. 245 

cular way. The more our thinking becomes abstract, the 
more is it absolutely dependent on the use of language, i. e. 
on a series of muscular acts. When a person has lost the 
power of representing words, he has lost the power of abstract 
thought. 

In the same way, then, or to the extent that we can control 
sensation or percept, we can keep the representation (of the 
percept) before the mind for a prolonged time. Representa- 
tion or idea is to the sensation, as the voluntary act for the 
former is to the voluntary act for the latter. The latter 
results in definite overt action ; the former does not, but it is 
equally real. 

Later investigation mainly confirms Professor Bain's view. 
Just as in perceiving, when voluntarily done, there is 
sensation received and muscular action put forth, so in 
voluntary thinking the idea, which is there, has in connexion 
with it certain motor impulses, which are represented by 
facts in consciousness ; and these, in connexion with the idea, 
constitute the voluntary control of the idea. 

Mental life at every stage, however re-representative, 
conforms to the essential type of impression received and 
overt impulse sent forth. The term sensori-motor action 
may serve to describe this general procedure. Ideo-motor 
(or imagino-motor) action is the same procedure on occasion 
of representation. Now, though volition can have no expla- 
nation except in relation to sensori-motor action, and involves 
ideo-motor action, it implies a further elaboration. Into 
volition proper there always enters the notion of ourselves, 
our ego, acting for personal foreseen ends. But remember 
that this factor of ego is nothing that is not expressible in 
terms of one kind of representation or another. Psychology 
knows of no other. Analysed on the side of volition, it is 



246 Elements of Psychology. 

a congeries, never developed alike in any two persons, of 
purposes, ideals, aspirations, all of which are psychologically 
so many representations. 



For Lecture XXXVI read Bain, Bk. IV, ch. l-iii ; Ward, pp. 41, 

83 -85 ; Sully, op. cit. (either work) on ' Attention.' 



LECTURE XXXVI. 

ATTENTION AND THE EGO. 

Attention. 

We have already passed from conation accompanied by 
overt muscular, and visceral activity, to deal with conation 
as involving covert activity. The generic term covering this 
kind of activity is ' attention/ Attention has application to 
thought as such ; it has also application to our external 
activity. It is intellection voluntarily put forth. And yet it 
may be one of two kinds, involuntary or voluntary; for 
though in the fullest sense attention involves volition, still 
there is an attitude of mind that is attention, yet is not 
voluntary. No hard and fast line, however, can be drawn 
between the two ; they must be considered together. 

The mere fact that while we are already mentally occupied, 
something else starts into consciousness, and, for a time long 
or short, maintains itself in the foreground of consciousness 
excluding what was there before, involves a certain overt 
activity of mind ; but this is not voluntary activity, for that was 
pre-engaged in some direction. Which kind of involuntary 
activity is it, then ? Involuntary attention, since it is action 
depending upon a conscious state, is not describable as purely 
reflex action, yet the activity (as compared with voluntary 
action proper) is of the relatively simple reflex type. We can 
draw no line. To the extent that attention is involuntary, it is 



248 Elements of Psychology. [Lect. 

action of the reflex type. When noises, e.g., overpower one, 
and one becomes fully conscious of them, the action in 
attending is then of a kind similar to voluntary activity and 
may pass over into it. 

Attention as Activity. 

Voluntary attention presupposes something in con- 
sciousness which we attend to; this by definite attention is 
rendered both clearer as a whole and more distinct in its 
parts. This clearness and distinctness, in the case of per- 
ception, takes place in connexion with direct overt muscular 
action of which we are conscious. But this motor attitude 
is present in all intellection, even in imagination and con- 
ception. In higher or more abstract stages of intellection, 
although the activity involved need not appear as overt 
muscular action, there is reason to believe that the problem 
of attentive thought cannot be solved except by the ana- 
logy of attention in perception which does involve muscular 
activity. The covert activity that is involved in attentive 
thinking has its psychological explanation in the overt activity 
of muscular action. The brain-process would seem to be the 
same in both cases ; and even in thought the processes tend 
always to result in an overt outcome of some sort or other. 

Attention as Feeling, 

Again, we attend to what we are interested in. Now interest 
is interest for the subject or individual; therefore in all cases 
of attention feeling must necessarily be involved \ And will 
is activity that takes place with intellection and in relation to 
feeling. When feeling is present, intellection takes place in 
a certain definite manner with activity involved. Professor 

1 Cf. Lecture XXVIII, p. 185. 



xxxvl] Elements of Psychology. 249 

Bain goes to this length, but no farther. But we do not get 
the full sense of attention, or the full intensity of the mind's 
action in relation to intellection, until we get beyond the 
consideration of this or that particular feeling as marking 
interest in this or that subject. 

Consider the dome of the college. What interest is there 
in this ? There was a previous relation between this and my 
ego, and therefore it becomes possible for me to single it out 
for special consideration. It is not a mere link between 
a representation and a feeling that is here involved. There 
is appropriation of the thing in relation to my personality 
or ego ; the ego or subject, thus appearing as a direct 
factor in volition of any kind, is itself something that has 
a development. 

Attention as peculiarly self-referred activity. 

The ego which thus appears as a direct factor in volition 
is distinguished in philosophical language as the ' empirical 
ego ' and opposed to the ' pure ego/ The only ego that we 
can take account of in psychology for the explanation of 
facts of intellection or will is an ego that has been gradually 
developed, and that represents really the deposit of the 
experience of one's life. The actions of a child are well 
expressed in Professor Bains psychology as the forging of 
links between feelings and activities. But later on, though 
much of our action continues to be of this type, much of it 
also becomes different. What we come to know attentively 
is what we know or do in relation to ourselves, the selves 
that have been gradually developed by a process of accretion. 
Professor Bain and J. S. Mill speak of a man's character 
in this connexion; advancing thus far towards recognising 
the ego as a factor. But this factor, though so prominent 



250 Elements of Psychology. [here. 

in developed life, is nevertheless not original. A man's 
character is the result of his experience. Professor Bain, 
whose treatment of volition is good as far as it goes, does 
not go far enough. He does not fully recognise that ' perma- 
nent account' to which all goes, all particular experiences 
are referred. He nowhere explains conception of self as an 
entity persisting with a value of its own and with the 
power of conceiving ends, &c. Our be^t actions are tho?e 
of self-respect. Again, the question of Free Will has no 
meaning unless we recognise that action, in its developed 
form, takes place in relation to a subject who is acting. To 
explain actions through links between particular ideas and 
feelings only suffices psychologically for the early manifesta- 
tions of character, if indeed it suffice at all. The ego 
has its gradual evolution, an evolution which is different 
in different persons, — so also has Will proper, into which 
there always enters the ego acting for personal ends, and 
which when fully developed is the crowning attribute of man. 

Constructive States. 

The concentration of ' genius ' and all forms of psychosis 
termed ■ constructive ' are activities of the Volitional type, 
inasmuch as they represent Ends to be obtained under the 
impulse of strong emotional interest. All scientific thought 
is voluntary thought; science depends on constructive 
thought just as art depends on constructive imagination. 

Apperception. 

In later psychology the word apperception is coming 
to be used to express intellection voluntarily determined 
at any grade. When I perceive the pillar to the exclusion 
of everything else and keep my attention on it, perception of 



xxxvi.] Elements of Psychology. 251 

this kind, which is essentially voluntary, is called apperception. 
But apperception includes also reflective thinking, con- 
structive imagination. With Professor Wundt it comes to 
be synonymous with attention. 

Belief, 

The state of belief has not been well classed by Professor 
Bain under Will on the ground of its manifesting itself by 
readiness to act. Belief is not covered by Will, is not funda- 
mentally conational. It is one thing to believe, another to 
act, another to will to believe. This I shall treat of in the 
course on General Philosophy. 



Note. — The student will find instructive reading on the psychology 
of ' Genius ' in the last chapter of Professor Sully's The Human Mind, 
1 On Concrete Mental Development/ a chapter which (in Croom 
Robertson's words) ' deals in an interesting way with such topics 
as the unity of mental development, varieties of mind, scientific view 
of individuality, dreams, the hypnotic trance, and pathological 
psychoses.' 

On the psychology of ' ideal construction* or constructive imagina- 
tion let him note another passage from the same appreciative criticism 
of Professor Sully's treatment of this subject (Mind, i, N. S., 413) : — 
' Productive imagination is the subject of the next chapter v The 
Human Mind), i, p. 362 et seq.). The general process of ideal 
construction, the distinction between its receptive and creative 
phases, the characteristic peculiarities of intellective, practical, and 
aesthetic imagination, are successively handled in a luminous and 
instructive way. The account of the constructive process seems to 
us defective in one point. It seems to be implied that the appropriate 
filling in of the scheme or ' draft image ' in which all mental produc- 
tion is rightly held to consist, merely depends on suggestion by 
contiguity and similarity together with voluntary selection and 
rejection of the material so supplied. It ought, I think, to have been 



252 Elements of Psychology. 

added, that the scheme itself profoundly modifies the train of sugges- 
tion, so as to produce congruent presentations, independently of 
voluntary selection and rejection. If we compare Mr. Sully's 
description with what we know concerning the creative activity of 
a man of genius, such as Mozart, its inadequacy and its consequent 
inaccuracy become evident/ 

These and other questions concerning complex psj-choses lie 
beyond the scope of an elementary course of psychology. The 
student who goes on to study them in Professor Sully's important 
treatise will do well to consider the remaining points raised in 
Croom Robertson's review — the last he lived to write. — Ed. 



APPENDIX. 

ON THEORIES OF LATENT OR UNCONSCIOUS 
MENTAL MODIFICATIONS. 

Reproduced from the course of Psychology as delivered 
in 1873-74. 

The question of mental modifications that apparently take 
place beneath the threshold of consciousness should be con- 
sidered in connexion with representative consciousness in 
general. I will further explain the subject as simply as 
I can. It often and often happens in consciousness that 
states or links in a representative train do not come into full 
consciousness as such, although they have their effect in 
bringing on their consequents. The term in consciousness 
after which they came is found to have been succeeded by 
a term before which they came. This term may have dropped 
out from memory. Or was it ever a part of conscious experi- 
ence ? Had it any mental being at all ? If so, of what kind ? 

Now this is not exactly like the instance of names and the 
' ideas corresponding thereto ' given by Berkeley in his Theory 
of Vision. Berkeley said that the moment I utter a well- 
known word— let us say ' hat'— the hearer's first representation 
is not that the word is English, or monosyllabic, but is of the 
kind of object so named. The presentation of the word is of no 
account, or of account only as bringing on the representation. 



254 Elements of Psychology. 

Berkeley's whole Theory of Vision, wherein he asserted thai 
states of tactile consciousness were represented by certain 
visual states which (like the word 'hat') dropped out of con- 
sciousness, rested on this. Here the word falls upon the ear 
and is even attended to, but the auditory consciousness is so 
fugitive and so unimportant by comparison with what it brings 
on, that it falls into the background. There is, however, no 
doubt but that it was in consciousness. But what of those 
representative states that are so slightly in consciousness that 
in certain cases they can only be supplied afterwards by 
a difficult process of search and often cannot be supplied at 
al. ? How often does it not happen that, when one thing comes 
' into our heads ' after another, we cannot state the line that 
brought them in consecutively, the links that connect them ? 
It is not enough to say that the links are of no importance in 
themselves, and that the association is between what was in 
consciousness and what has come into it. There is no associa- 
tion between extreme representative terms as such. Hamilton 
gave as an illustration how in his own experience the repre- 
sentation of Ben Lomond was abruptly succeeded by that of 
the Prussian system of education. He remembered afterwards 
that once on the mountain he had met a German professor and 
that in course of conversation they had discussed that particular 
subject. But for the time these intermediate links had fallen 
away. I wish now to draw attention to some views on these 
missing links. 

James Mill made a statement on neglected elements in a train 
of representations to this effect: — It not unfrequently happens 
in our associated feelings and states that the antecedent is of 
no importance farther than as it introduces the consequent 1 .' 
J. S. Mill, following out his father's statement, set out what he 
called a law of Obliviscence : — t When, through the frequent 
repetition of a series of sensations, the corresponding train 
of ideas rushes through the mind with extreme rapidity, some of 

1 Analysis of the Human Mind, Ed. by J. S. Mill, ch. iii, § 10. 



Appendix. 255 

the links are apt to disappear from consciousness as completely 
as if they had never formed part of the series V 

Now if we allow the fact to be as he states, we still should 
put it in other language. We should say ' series of representa- 
tions ' and ' train of representations.' Thus altered, the law is 
really a following out of James Mill's statement, or a mere 
modification of it to the case of a purely representative train. 
Let A, B, C, D, E be any representative train. Then if, said 
J. S. Mill, this train has been very often experienced, A may 
bring on E without B, C, D coming into consciousness. What 
then has become of B, C, D ? 

Hamilton's i. lustration, be it noted, does not conform to this. 
There was no repetition of the encounter and conversation on 
Ben Lomond. Hence Mill's statement, although it represents 
a case real enough and frequent enough, is too exclusive. It 
is not necessary that the series of presentations should have 
happened very frequently in order that, when one term of it 
is revived, another shall be revived without the intermediate 
terms. And so, while I give Mill's statement, I prefer to discuss 
the question in this more general form: — In a representative 
train we may find terms succeeding each other in conscious 
ness with the omission of intermediate links which were in 
the presentative train, whether that happened once or was fre- 
quently repeated. What we shall say will apply to the more 
particular case with which he deals. 

Hamilton's theory on the missing links is set up in opposition 
to that of Dugald Stewart, who held that these representations 
that drop out really did pass through the mind, but with 
extreme swiftness, so that, though we were conscious of them 
as they passed through, they left no trace in memory. I think 
that Mill included the clause ' with extreme rapidity' just to 
take account of Stewart's statement of the case, but this is at 
the cost of perfect consistency, in view of his theory of the 
intermediate states. In Stewart's view they were fleeting con- 

1 Ibid., note 34. 



256 Elements of Psychology. 

sciousness and forgotten, but consciousness there was at the 
time of presentation. Hamilton admitted that they were mental 
phenomena, but denied they were ever conscious states. He 
held that mind included not only all conscious states, but also 
certain unconscious states. Mind and consciousness are not 
commensurate terms. There are unconscious mental states or 
' latent mental modifications,' just as real as any conscious 
mental states, and just as effective to bring on other and 
conscious states. In the presentative train they were, or they 
may have been, conscious states, but in the representative train 
they need not be so to be effective as antecedents. 

Mill's theory presents a third alternative, namely, that the 
forgotten links are in no sense mental, have no mental sub- 
sistence whatever, but that, just as when they had a mental 
subsistence as presentations, there was a concomitant nervous 
process, they, when the terms not dropped out are revived, 
remain and have their effect as mere nervous processes. His 
statement has a certain merit in bringing out what the others 
fail to take account of, namely, that there is a physical aspect, 
and that the question may be discussed under this, as well as 
under the psychical aspect. At the same time I do not think 

that so he gets over what the others 

^o— * °v* are considering. For if b, c, d, as we 

may call the intermediate nervous 
processes, were actuated each of them 
in the representation, how comes it 
-0^2 that nothing appears in consciousness 

along with them ? Or how should the 
difference be assigned in the mode of actuation in the two 
cases : the case where there is a conscious state and that 
where there is none ? Besides, Mill himself comes near to 
asserting that even the intermediate nervous links may be 
dropped out and bring on e. This may be typically figured 
as in the accompanying diagram: I do not, however, quite 
see how frequent repetition would make a new way for the 
nervous impulse and cause it to strike across. 






Appendix. 257 

I do not, then, think that Mill works out his view completely. 
And I cannot help thinking that, after all, there is little more 
than a question of words between the views. I mean, that none 
of these three psychologists, or any one else, could consider the 
case fully in all its bearings and put it into terms which do not 
admit an expression in terms of the others. If A brings on E, 
and B f C, D do not come again into consciousness, they were 
originally present in some shape or other none the less. And 
if we declare that they were there as intermediate links, effective 
though not fully actuated, it will depend upon our general view 
of psychology whether we choose Hamilton's, Stewart's, or Mill's 
expression of the phenomenon. Mill, as we saw, drew attention 
to the fact that, whatever else is kept up, there must be kept up 
a physical fact of nervous process. I agree, and cannot doubt 
that the nervous circle is complete. But Mill himself would 
have had to allow that the intermediate steps of the nervous 
process are not fully actuated, else there would be conscious 
representations along with them. What then could he say 
about these faintly actuated intermediate nervous processes ? 
What could he say about them on their conscious side ? Did 
anybody, did Stewart, claim that they enter fully into con- 
sciousness ? Stewart said, No ; so quickly do they pass through 
consciousness that we are not afterwards conscious of having 
been conscious of them. Hamilton denied that there had been 
conscious continuity ; there had been only a continuity of 
psychical or mental condition. My point is that Mill's position 
required him to adopt either Stewart's or Hamilton's account 
along with his own. It will not do to say we need not consider 
the intermediate nervous processes in relation to consciousness 
at all, for according to Mill himself they have only to be more 
fully actuated, and there would be corresponding conscious 
states. Well then, regarding Mill's statement as merely supple- 
menting, and not excluding, the other views, which of the latter 
is the truer ? Shall we hold firmly to mind and consciousness 
as commensurate, or shall we within mind include certain un- 
conscious but mental states ? 

S 



258 Elements of Psychology. 

Up to a certain point there is no question of deciding between 
the two. Both say we are not conscious of the intermediate 
states when representing ; both maintain the mental continuity. 
But Stewart holds to mental continuity with no memory, 
Hamilton to mental continuity but no consciousness. Here 
it is of some importance which mode of statement we adopt. 
I cannot help thinking that Hamilton's view — which is not his 
originally, but is borrowed from Leibniz— or rather that 
Hamilton's mode of expression is to be preferred. I do not 
at the same time wish to be bound to Hamilton's mode of 
argument. Against Stewart's position his argument is not 
forcible, namely, that it is absurd to say we can ever have 
been conscious of anything of which we have no memory. 
I am prepared to assert the contrary. But there is this to be 
said in favour of Hamilton's view, namely, that while conscious- 
ness quite obviously has degrees each of which may still be 
described as conscious state, it has also degrees which, un- 
deniably existent as they are, can be described in no other way 
but as unconscious. At any moment I am conscious of some- 
thing in particular. I am looking, e. g., at one member of the 
class, or considering the relation between two members, or 
the fact that there are more than two. Something is in the 
foreground of consciousness, fully attended to. What then is 
my condition in relation to other objects in the room that come 
within my vision ? Am I conscious of them or not ? Have 
I a semi-consciousness of them ? Am I conscious of them but 
with a different degree of intensity ? But further, my emotional 
mood for the day may have been determined by something 
I heard or saw this morning. Am I to a certain extent conscious 
of this when contemplating any one in the class — conscious of 
what has happened, and emotionally conscious of it ? I think 
that this too may be affirmed. It is at any moment of mental 
life impossible to look upon consciousness as rounded off* 
and complete, or to regard any state as so in consciousness 
that every state that is less fully so is completely out of 
consciousness. 



Appendix. 259 

Stewart's position lands him in a corner from which he cannot 
easily get out. He has to show what is the character of these 
states which, the moment they have been experienced, do not 
admit of being remembered. He will be forced to admit that 
there is consciousness and consciousness, that which we are 
fully conscious of and that which we are not fully conscious of. 
And Hamilton's way of getting rid of the difficulty by saying 
that some mental states are not conscious states does seem 
a larger and better expression. There is no necessity why 
we should identify what we call mind with what we call 
consciousness. 

Hamilton's argument on Leibnizian lines proceeds to posit 
for each of us a minimum visibilc and a minimum audibile, &c. 
Now each of these is divisible, and each division is invisible, 
inaudible, but if taken together the sum or minimum is appre- 
hensible. Hamilton infers that there is a mental or subjective 
state corresponding to each element of the minimum, even if 
such a state cannot be called conscious. The roar of the sea 
is made up of the sounds of the separate waves, and these of 
the sounds of separate drops — sounds which, taken alone, might 
be inaudible, yet which, unless they had some subjective ele- 
mentary state corresponding to each of them, would not in the 
aggregate be apprehended by us. 

Much opposition and a good deal of ridicule has been brought 
to bear upon this argument. Mill objected to it for supposing 
that because a certain phenomenon appears under a certain 
conjunction of circumstances, it partly appears when only part 
of those circumstances is present : e. g. that because oxygen 
and hydrogen make up water, therefore when oxygen is present, 
water is partly made. Now if there is a sense in which this 
is admittedly absurd, there is a sense in which it is not so. 
Hamilton did not say that what is beneath the minimum is 
something like consciousness. He only said that, whatever it is, 
it stands in some definite relation to consciousness. Yet he 
might well have replied that the case of the elements of water 
is no fair parallel. A true analogy would be such as this : — 

S 2 



260 Elements of Psychology. 

an ounce in one scale may not balance a pound in the other, 
nevertheless it goes some way towards doing so. While, then, 
I do not bind myself to what Hamilton and Leibniz say in the 
form in which they put it, I do not share the counter-opinion 
that their argument is worthless. But I lay no particular stress 
upon it because it admits of dispute. I put the case on more 
general grounds thus : — Consciousness has degrees. It is not 
necessarily either fully present or absent. It may be half, or 
less than half, present. It is as a field on which a great variety 
of states of different intensity are struggling for the mastery. 
Every state has to assert itself, maintain kself, yield eventually 
to, and be forced aside by, another. The state of mind in which 
we cannot grasp or recall something that is as it were hovering 
about us is an instance. Or another : — I was thinking last night 
and not making much way, when suddenly the ticking of my 
watch on the wall came to the foreground of my consciousness 
In two minutes it was gone again and the other thoughts had 
reasserted themselves. There are so many facts of consciousness 
that can only be expressed in terms of degrees of consciousness, 
that I am constrained to adopt this view in some form. It is 
impossible to maintain that the state just passed off has gone 
out of my mental being, that because it is no longer in full 
consciousness I am not conscious of it at all. And if I remain 
partially conscious of it who shall tell me at what stage I cease 
to become conscious of it altogether ; or, because it has sunk so 
far beneath the threshold of consciousness that I cannot recall 
it, that therefore it does not admit of any subjective expression ? 
What has commonly been urged against the theory of latent 
mental modifications is that, not being conscious of them, we 
can never have any proof of their existence. It is said, on the 
other hand, that the action of the spinal cord and the lower 
cerebral centres generally, in fact reflex actions which are 
unconscious actions, have nevertheless a subjective side. And 
it is not more remarkable that these states should have a sub- 
jective face, although unconscious, than the fact that many brain 
processes, at first accompanied by consciousness, should come 



Appendix. 261 

to be unconsciously performed. We know that at certain stages 
consciousness stands in a definite relation to nerve. And it 
may be inferred to stand in relation to it at other stages. That 
there is no correspondence between them in reflex actions is 
more than I am prepared to assert, and those who do assert it 
are going a great deal beyond due limits. The subject does 
not admit of special scientific distinctness, but every one should 
work out his own experience as well as he may and round it 
out to a general view. 

I confess my thought tends very much towards this general 
assumption, that mind, i.e. subjective experience, and con- 
sciousness, as those writers understood consciousness, meaning 
states of which we are fully conscious, are not at all com- 
mensurate terms. 



INDEX. 



Abercrombie, 149 note. 

Abstraction, 169, 175. 

Active Sense, 88 et seq., 98 ; in 
perception, 101 et seq. 

Activity, spontaneous, 39, 224; 
involuntary, 223 et stq. ; for 
feeling, 239, 240 ; consciousness 
of, 84-91 ; voluntary, 237 et seq. 

Adaptation, of single eye, 121 ; in 
conation, 228 et seq. 

Adjustment, of single eye, 121. 

^Esthetic feeling, 213 et seq. 

^Esthetics, 6, 214, 216. 

^Esthophysiology, 34. 

Affection, being affected, 21 et 
seq., 83-85, 185 et seq., 202. 

After-image, 140. 

Agreement, consciousness of, 24. 

Analysis, as scientific method, 17; 
of mind, 17-20; should begin 
with sense, 53—55 ; of muscular 
sense, 86, S7. 

Apperception, 221 note, 250. 

Appetites, 65, 66, 219, 223 note, 

235. 
Apprehension, 178. 
Anstotle, his division of mind, 20 ; 

theory of heart and nerves, 28 ; 

on tactile doubleness, 115; on 
* association, 152; on pleasure 

and pain, 210. 
Art, as emotional, 194, 213 et seq.; 

as volitional and intellectual, 

250. 



Aspects of things, 3, 4. 

Assimilation, a function of know- 
ing, 24, 161 ; in perception, 96, 
97 ; in representative imagina- 
tion, 161 ; in thought, 170, 172. 

Association, 144, 148 et seq. ; in- 
separable, 158 ; one law of, 159; 
resolution of, 160 et seq. ; com- 
pound, 155 ; obstructive, 163. 

Attention, as complex, 149; ap- 
perception in, 221 note; volun- 
tary and involuntary, 247 ; as 
activity, 248 ; as feeling, 248 ; 
as self- referred, 249. 

Automatic action, secondary, 224, 
232, 234; primary, 224, 225. 

Bain, passim. 

Beautiful, feeling of the, 213 et 

seq. 
Belief, in psychology, 251. 
Berkeley, on touch, 99, 101, 124, 

125, 128, 253; on idea, 135. 
Binocular vision, 130. 
Biology, as abstract science, 4. 
Body, related to mind, 34 et seq. ; 

b. and space, 113; one's own 

= first ( object/ 113. 
Brown, no. 
Butler, 187. 

Cabanis, 64. 

Chemistry, as abstract science, 4. 

Child's mind, 57. 



264 



Index. 



Coefficient of muscular sense, 87 
et seq. 

Coensesthesis, 65. 

Cognition, its philosophical im- 
port, 24, 97 ; classified, 173. 

Common Sensibility, 61. 

Communication, fundamental fac- 
tor in speech, i8t. 

Comparative Psychology, 29, 30. 

Comprehension, 178. 

Comte, on introspection, 13. 

Conation, preferable term to Will, 
21-23; as related to Feeling, 
23, 220; and to intellection, 25, 
219 ; in Spencerian psychology, 
26; analysis of, 219 et seq.; 
modes of, 222 et seq. 

Concept, 165 et seq. ; c, and per- 
cept, 169 et seq. ; nature of, 
177. 

Conception, 165 et seq. ; c. and 
perception, 174. 

Conceplualism, 176. 

Concomitance, 30-36, 40-46. 

Concrete sciences, 4. 

Consciousness, 7; defined, 10; 
continuity of, 16, 49 ; flow of 
sensation indispensable to, 56, 

57- 
Consensuous movement, in vision, 

122. 
Construction, mental, 119, 129, 

132 et seq.; 250. 
Contiguity, law of, 154 et seq. ; 

160 et seq. 
Control, 24 t et seq. 
Convergence, in vision, 122. 
Co-ordination, in nerve function, 

41, 229 ; sensations of, 72. 
Custom, 34. 

Darwin, on emotion, 201, 204; 

on instinct, 234. 
Delusion, 142. 
Desire, 223 note, 236. 
Destutt de Tracy, no. 
Development of mind, 48-52. 
Diderot, on expiession, 243. 



Difference, consciousness of, 24; 
in sensations, 82, 91-93 ; in re- 
presentation, 155 ; law of, 161. 

Diffusion, in feeling, 192. 

Direction, 133. 

Discrete consciousness, 175. 

Discrimination, a function of in- 
tellection, 24, 81, 161 ; in per- 
ception, 97 ; in representative 
imagination, 161 ; in conception, 
170, 172. 

Distance, 93, 103; as tactile, 115; 
as visual, 128. 

Doubleness, tactile, 115. 

Dream-image, 139. 

Education, of body and mind, 51 ; 
e. of feeling, 201. 

Ego, the bearer of mental phe- 
nomena, 27; e. and general 
sense, 65 ; ' empirical,' and 
'pure,' 249; evolution of, 250; 
in attention, 250. 

Egoistic feeling, 208. 

Emotion, expression of, 194; de- 
fined, 198-200; e. and move- 
ment, 200 ; history of term, 202 ; 
representation of, 203 ; as racial, 
203 ; classifications of, 206 et 
seq. ; aesthetic, 213 et seq. 

Emotional, adjective to feeling, 22. 

Empiricists, 105. 

Ethical actions, 213. 

Ethics, a department of philosophy, 

7- 
Evolution, 204, 211, 233, 250. 
Experience, as growth of mind, 52, 

53; racial, 203. 
Experientialism, in perception, 105 

et seq. 
Expression, of thought, 179; e. 

and speech, 180; of feeling, 193, 

194,. 2 43- 

Extension, primary quality in ob- 
ject, 91, 102 ; as pure intuition, 
105 ; logically prior to resist- 
ance, 108 et seq. 

Extensity, in sensation, 78, 79. 



Index. 



265 



Feeling, a phase of mind, 21 ; as 
pleasure and pain, 23, 187 ; as 
neutral, 22, 82, 189; in popular 
use and in psychology, 22 ; as 
related to conation, 23; and to 
intellection, 25, 191 ; in Spen- 
cerian psychology, 26, 185; its 
nervous concomitant, 47, 191 et 
seq. ; as subjective affection, 
185 ; history of the term, 186; 
expression of, 193, 194; and 
art, 194, 195 ; classes of, 195 ; 
aesthetic, 2 t 3 et seq. 

'Feeling-tone,' 197. 

Flow of consciousness, 17, 144 et 
seq , 158, 179. 

Folk-psychology, 30. 

Forgetfulness, 164 ; see also Ob- 
liviscence. 

Galton, F., on visualisation, 137, 

143 ; on generic images, 168. 
General Sense, 60 et seq. 
Generalisation, 169, 172. 
Generic images, 168. 
Genius, 250, 251. 
Grote, chair of philosophy, I. 
Growth of mind, 48-52. 

Habit, 30, 232, 233. 

Hallucination, 140, 141. 

Hamilton, on faculty, 20, 160 
note; introduced tripartite di- 
vision, 20; use of 'conation/ 
23; and 'thought/ 166 note; 
and ' conception/ 178; on latent 
mental modifications, 254 et seq. 

Hartley, 149, 152, 156, 158. 

Harvey, 29. 

Hearing, sense of, 67, 71-74 ; emo- 
tional value of, 79 ; intellectual 
value of, 80, 81, 92, 133; mus- 
cular coefficient in, 90. 

Higher = in science more complex, 
40. 

Hobbes, on image, 139 ; on asso- 
ciation, 152; on speech, 181. 

Hoffding, passim. 



Hume, on association, 152 ; on 
feeling, 187. 

Idea, 135. 

Ideation, 136, 156 note, 203. 

Illusion, 140-142, 173. 

Image, retinal, 119, 129; for idea, 
135 ; i, and precept, 138 et seq., 
167 ; normal and abnormal, 1 40— 

143. 
Imagination, representative, 135; 

popular sense, 136; constructive, 

137, 240. 
Imitation, 237, 238. 
Infant Psychology, 30. 
Infants, consciousness in, 53, 54. 
Innate ideas, 174, 204. 
Innervation of muscle, 83. 
Instinct, 201, 205, 224, 2 30 et seq.; 

i. and evolution, 233. 
Intellection, a phase of mind, 21 ; 

purely psychological term, 24; 

relation to feeling and conation, 

25 ; nervous concomitant, 47 ; 

as perception, 96 et seq. ; laws 

of, 133, 134; i. and speech, 179 

et seq. 
Intensity, of sensation, 76-79 ; of 

feeling, 196. 
Introspection, 13, 15. 
Intuitions, emotive, 213. 
Irradiation, 192. 

James, on extension, 106. 
Judgment, 166, 177-179. 

Kant, adopted tripartite division, 
20. 

Knowledge, its philosophical im- 
port, 24. 

Ladd, in. 

Language, as metaphorical, 12, 

13 ; /. and thought, 177 et seq. 
Latent mental modifications, 253 

et seq. 
Laws, of intellection, 133, 134; 

of representative consciousness, 

144 et seq. 



266 



Index. 



Leibniz, on continuity of con- 
sciousness, 43, 258-260. 

Lewes, on feeling, 22, 27, 185 ; on 
instinct, 234. 

Local sign, 116. 

Localisation, cerebral, 41, 42 ; of 
sensations, 65, 95. 

Locke, Tetens a disciple of, 21 ; 
on idea, 135; on association, 
152; on perceiving, 1 y 1 ; on 
feeling, 186. 

Logic, a department of philosophy, 
I, 2 ; thought in /., 177. 

Materialist standpoint. 44. 

Mathematics, as abstract science, 5. 

Maudsley, on introspection, 13. 

Mechanical action, 232. 

Memory, 135, 156 

Mercier, on will, 26 ; on the emo- 
tions, 205 note. 

Metaphor, in psychology, 12. 

Method, natural science as, 10. 

Mill, James, 156, 254. 

Mill, J. S., on ideation, 136; on 
association, 157; on speech, 181; 
on character, 239; on oblivi- 
scence, 254 et seq. 

Mind, philosophy of, 3 ; science 
of, 2 ; nature of, 3 ; as life, 5 ; 
as subjective experience, 7, 8, 
12-15 ; states of, 17 ; phases of, 
21 ; tripartite division of, 20; 
composition of, 26 ; related to 
body, 29, 34; m. and conscious- 
ness, 42, 256 et seq. ; growth 
of, 48-52 ; mental stages, 52. 

Motor, 38 note; m. impulses, 83. 

Movement, feeling of, 86, 103 
note ; in emotion, 200. 

Murray, J. Clark, on sense, 58, 
124; on association, 157; on 
emotion, 197 note. 

Muscular sense, 83-91. 

Nativist theory, 103 note, 105. 
Natural science as method, 10. 



Nature, philosophy of, 2 ; n. and 

mind, 8. 
Nerve-function, 37-46. 
Nervous system, 28, 34 et seq., 

193, 227. 
Nominalism, 176. 
Non-ego, 65, no, 113, 208. 

Object, 97 et seq. ; = obstacle, 

109 et seq. 
Objective, defined, 8 ; observation, 

14. 
Objective perception, 98 et seq. 
Objective Psychology, 28 et seq. 
Obliviscence, 147-149, 254. 
Organ, of perception, 115 note. 
Organic sensibility, 62, 80, 81, 89. 
Organism, as inherited, 203, 204. 

Pain, as feeling, 23, 189, 191 ; of 
sense, 79, 80 ; resolution of, 
210 ; conational import of, 211. 

Parallelism, 44. 

Passion, 202. 

Percept, 134-136; p. and image, 
137 et seq. ; reinstatement of, 
145-152 ; p. and concept, 169 et 
seq. 

Perception, metaphor in, 13; op- 
posed to sensation, 91, 94; pro- 
blem of, 96, 97 ; as relating, 
referring sensations, 95 et seq. ; 
philosophical aspect of, 97 ; tac- 
tile, theory of, 10 1 et seq. ; visual, 
theory of, 118 et seq.; other 
sense-/., 132, 133 ; in its formal 
aspect, 133 ; /. and conception, 
174. 

Philosophy, its meaning and his- 
tory, 1 ; ph. and science, 3, 4. 

Phrenology, 43 note. 

Physics, as abstract science, 4. 

Physiological Psychology, 32-39. 

Play-impulse, 217. 

Pleasure, as feeling, 23, 189; of 
sense, 79, 80, 213; resolution of, 
210; conational import of, 211. 

Plurality of Points, 92. 



Index. 



267 



Presentation, defined, 19, 136 
Presentative consciousness, 136, 

173, 207. 
Presentative - representative, 136, 

173, 207. 
Psychology, defined, 2 ; as a science, 

3 et seq. 
Psycho-physics, 32, 58, 76, 77. 
Purposive action, 237. 

Reality, 9,7. 

Reasoning, 166, 177-179. 

Recollection, 135. 

Reflex action, 41, 224, 227-229. 

Reflexion, 10, 13. 

Regulative doctrine, 6. 

Relation, organs of, 64; among 
feelings, 26. 188. 

Relativity, of sensations, 75 ; r. 
and contrast, 155 ; of knowledge, 
155 ; law of, 161, 172, 217. 

Reminiscence, 135. 

Re- percept, 136. 

Representation, defined, 18; in 
tmotion, 203. 

Representative feelings, 207. 

Representative imagination, 135. 

Re - representative consciousness, 
173, 174, 207, 208. 

Resistance, primary quality of ob- 
ject, 91, 98, 102 ; modes of, 104 ; 
historically prior to extension, 
108 et seq. 

Retention, 24, 162. 

Retentiveness, 24, 162. 

Schopenhauer, 221 note. 

Science, defined, 2, 3, 17 ; abstract, 
3 ; as objective and subjective, 
6; natural, 10; as construction, 
250; s. and philosophy, 2. 

Secondary automatic action, 224, 
232, 234. 

Self, 13, 208. 

Self-consciousness, 10, 13, 65. 

Self-conservation, law of, 210, 240. 

Sensation, 45, 58-96 ; quantity 
and quality of, 59 ; seats of, 59, 



114 note, 195 ; order of, 60, 67, 
80 ; relativity of, 75. 

Sense, stage of, 54etseq. ; general, 
60-66; special, 61-63, 67-74; 
emotional value of, 78, 84. 

Sensus vitalis, 61. 

Sentiment, 202, 216. 

Sight, sense of, 71-74; emotional 
value of, 79 ; intellectual value 
of, 80 ; coefficient of muscular 
sense in, 90 ; in perception, 100 
et seq. 

Similarity, law of, 152, 154, 156, 
159 et seq.; ground of concept, 
167 et seq. 

Skin-sensibility, 67-69, 80; intel- 
lectual value of, 80-82. 

Smell, 70, 7 1 ; emotional value of, 
79 ; intellectual value of, 81, 
133 ; coefficient of muscular 
sense in, 90. 

Sociology, as abstract science, 4. 

Solidity, 117, 123, 131. 

Solipsism, defined, 32. 

Space, perception of, 102 et seq. ; 
s. and body, 109, 113; passive 
apprehension of, 116. 

Specific energy of nerve, 63, 64 

Spencer, passim, 

Stewart, 257-259. 

Subconsciousness, 42-44, 149, 
227, 257 et seq. 

Subject, mind as, 8, 9; meta- 
physically considered, 15, 27. 

Subjective, defined, 8; i s. sensa- 
tions,' 140. 

Suggestion, of touch through sight, 
123; laws of, 151, 154; J. and 
association, 154, 156. 

Sully, passim. 

Sympathetic feeling, 208. 

Systemic Sensibility, 61. 

Taine, on image, 137 note, 141, 
143 note; on language, 181. 

Taste, 70, 71 ; intellectual value 
of, 81, 133 ; emotional value of, 
79- 



268 



Index. 



Temperature, sense of, 69, 70; 
intellectual value of, 81 ; no co- 
efficient of muscular sense, 90. 

Tetens, 20. 

Thought, 165 et seq. ; modes of, 
178; th. and speech, 180-184; 
in perception, 183. 

Time, representation of, 153 note. 

Touch, proper, C7-69 ; intellectual 
value of, 80; in perception, 99 
et seq. ; one psychological abso- 
lute, 126, 127. 

Ultimate facts, for science, 20 ; for 
psychology, 15. 

Vague consciousness, 174, 175, 
203. 



Verification, 234. 
Volition, 238 et seq. 
Volume, 131 note. 
Vorstellimg, 18. 

Ward, on continuity of conscious- 
ness, 16 ; his psychology purely 
subjective, 32 ; on extensity, 78, 
106, 108; on association, 159 
note; on conation, 221 note. 

Weber's law, 77 ; experiments, 92. 

Whately, 178. 

Will, 23, 26; see also Conation. 

Willing, 21. 

W 7 undt, on innervation, 84, 85 ; 
on association, 157; on rela- 
tivity, 164 note; on conation, 
221 note. 



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